KING JOHN.
��THERE stands at Runnyrnede a king, while summer clothes
the plains, The hlood of high Plantagenet is coursing through his
veins,
But yet a sceptred hand he lifts, to shade his haggard brow, As if constrained to do a deed his pride would disallow.
He pauses still. His faint eye rests upon those barons
bold, Whose hands are grappling to their swords with fierce and
sudden hold. That pause is broke ; he bows him down before those
steel-girt men, And glorious Magna Charta glows beneath his trembling
pen.
His false lip to a smile is wreathed, as their exulting shout,
From 'neath the green, embowering trees, upon the gale swells out j
Yet lingers long his cowering glance on Thames' translu- cent tide,
As if some deep and bitter thought he from the throng would hide.
�� �
