e and hid them from the foe;
Two high-born youths, to holy things impell'd,
Hunted from place to place, though still they held
Their sacred faith, and died for it, and threw
The glory of that death on all who made the Shoe!

"Such is the story--so behaved our trade;
And then the Church its zealous homage paid,
And made their death-day holy, as we see
Still in the Calendar, and still to be!
And long the Shoemaker has felt the claim,
And proved him joyful at such lofty fame;
For theirs it was by more than blood allied,
Alike they worshipp'd, and alike they died!
Nor minded how the Pagan nipp'd their youth--
They are not dead who suffer for the Truth!
The skies receive them, and the earth's warm heart
In grateful duty ever plays its part,
Embalms their memory to all future time,
And thus, in love, still punishes the crime;
Sees, though the corse be trampled to the dust,
The murder'd dead have retribution just!

{620}
"Where are they now who wrought this fiendish wrong?
We hate the actors, and have hated long.
And where are they, the victims? Always here;
We feel their glory, and we hold it dear!
Oh yes, 'tis ours! that glory still is ours,
And, lo! how breaks it on these festive hours;
Each heart is warm, each eye lit up with pride,
'Tis sanction'd in our loves and sanctified!
Far o'er the earth--the Christianised--where'er
The Saviour's name is hymn'd in daily prayer,
The winds of heaven their memories tender waft,
Commix'd with all the sorceries of the _craft_.
The little leather artizan--the boy
To whom the shoe is yet but as a toy,
A thing to smile and look at, ere the day
Severer task will make it one of _pay_
(A constant duty and a livelihood),--
He, the young Crispin, emulous and good,
Is told of the Prince Martyrs--sometimes Royal!
(The trade, in its devotion, being so loyal,
It fain would stretch the fact or trifle still,
Eager, as 'twere, to get on highest hill.)
Through the fair France, through Germany, and Spain,
The blue-skied Italy, the Russias twain,
And farther still, across the Western Main.
There is the story known, engraft, 'tis true,
With things, as often is, of weight undue;
Yet still's enough, when sifted to the most,
To make the trade rejoice, and as a toast,
Now, as is wont, and ever to be given,
Hail to the memory of our friends in heaven!
CRISPIN and CRISPIANUS--they, the tw