ST. MICHAEL’S EVE.

BY EDMUND H. YATES.

I will tell to you a story, for in winter time we bore yeWith many an ancient legend and tale of bygone time ;

And methinks that there is in it enough to pass a minute,

So to add to my vainglory I have put it into rhyme.

As I heard it you shall hear it,—by one whom I revere itWas told me, as in childhood upon his knee I sat j

It treats of days long vanished, of the times of James the Banished,Of periwig, and rapier, and quaint three-cornered hat.

Sir Walter Ralph de Guy on, of a noble house the scion,

Though his monarch was defeated still held bravely to his cause,

And foremost in the slaughter by the Boyne’s ill-fated water,

Was seen his knightly cognizance,— a bear with bloody paws.

But when the fight was over, escaping under cover

Of the darkness and confusion, to England he returned,

As well might be expected, dispirited, dejected,

But his rage within him smouldered, nor ever brightly burned ;

Save when his daughter Alice would say, in playful malice,

That she loved the gallant Orange much better than the Green ;

And that as a maid she’d tarry till she found a chance to marryWith one true to William her bold King and Mary her good Queen.