Before Midnight, 31st December 1887.

One hour, and 'twill be numbered with the past,
My year of Jubilee, that to my heart
Has tribute brought from cot and hall and mart
Of loyalty and love;—a treasure vast,
There to be nursed and cherished to the last,
And with that one dear memory held apart,
Still sweetening through the years its bitter smart
With love in kingly story unsurpassed!
Go, then, bright year, go with a fond good-bye,
For all thy days with loving-kindness fraught!
And may all blessings from the God on high
Light on my people for their loving thought,
Keeping them worthy of the days gone by,
And the great name by their forefathers wrought!

CHAPTER V.

In the magnificent procession which attended the Queen to and from Westminster Abbey, no figure attracted more attention, or excited greater admiration, than that of the Crown Prince of Germany, in his white Cuirassier's uniform, and rivetting all eyes by his noble head and majestic bearing. Little was it then dreamed that within a year he was to succeed his father as Emperor of the Germans, when himself stricken by the cruel malady under which he sank within a few months after his accession. The tragic circumstances of his death awakened a very profound feeling throughout this country, and men's thoughts turned to the uncrowned Empress whom he left behind, and also to the Queen, who thus saw the fair hopes blighted, with which she and the Prince Consort had resigned their first and highly gifted child to the man of her heart, by whose side they might expect in time to see her throned as sovereign over a mighty kingdom.

The Emperor Frederic died on the 15th of June 1888. As soon as her health permitted, the widowed Empress decided to come to England for a time; and the Queen wrote to me suggesting that some special expression of public sympathy should meet her daughter on her arrival. That this sympathy would be generally and warmly expressed through the usual channels could not be doubted. But I ventured to think, that the expression of it might not unfitly be concentrated in the compacter form of verse. With this view I wrote the following sonnet, which appeared in the Standard two days before the Empress reached England:—

TO THE EMPRESS FREDERIC.

On her arriving in England, 17th November 1888.

When England sent thee forth, a joyous bride,
A prayer went through the land, that on thy head
Might all best blessings bounteously be shed,
And his, the lover-husband by thy side;
And England marked with ever-growing pride,
As onwards still the years full-freighted sped,
How wrought in both the grace of worth inbred,
To noblest acts and purposes allied.
With eyes of longing, not undimmed by tears,
England now greets thee, desolate and lone,
Heart-stricken, widowed of the twofold crown
Of love and empire; and the grief endears,
Remembering all the cherished hopes o'erthrown,
When at their height thy heart's lord was struck down.