THE RESTORATION. 



Banners are streaming to the breeze, 



And brazen trumpets ring, 

 And shouts yet not alone of these 



Thinks a returning king : 

 His thoughts are straying from the scene, 

 From what is now to what hath been ; 

 When death hung o'er the royal head, 

 And far from throne and home he fled ; 

 His sceptre but a broken reed, 

 Another reigning in his stead ! 



And where is he, whose arm of might 



Rul'd with an iron sway ? 

 Gone, like a troubled dream of night 



Before the' approach of day ; 

 The feeble heir he leaves behind, 

 Reft of his father's giant mind, 

 Lost, dead to glory and to fame, 

 Inherits but his father's name ; 

 Like a small water's hidden course, 

 Obscure, though ocean be its source. 



They came, they came, a noble throng, 



The loyal and the true ; 

 And now the monarch rides along, 



Girt by his chosen few : 

 But many eyes may look in vain, 

 To find, amid that splendid train, 

 The kindred forms that left their home, 

 With banished royalty to roam , 

 That clung to him they could not save, 

 Their recompense an exile's grave ! 



Spring-buds on every path are strewed, 



A sweet and lovely group, 

 As virgins brought from solitude, 



In the world's gaze to droop ; 

 And prancing chargers paw the ground, 

 Scattering these pale young blossoms round ; 

 And snowy plumes are fluttering by, 

 Pure as the white clouds of the sky ; 

 And nod, and smile, and wave of hand, 

 Are welcoming that joyous band. 



All, all is bright and glorious now, 



No traces of the past ; 

 But thus it is with all below, 



Where nought is doomed to last ; 

 One moment dazzle, the next all bright 

 Alternate bloom, alternate blight; 

 The son of sire struck headless down, 

 Now called from banishment to crown ; 

 A fitting type of human state, 

 Sad record of a monarch's fate ! 



