Page images
PDF
EPUB

Then, then, ye ocean warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.

HOHENLINDEN.

ON Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast array'd,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neigh'd,
To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then hush'd the steed to battle driven,
And louder than the bolt of Heaven,
Far flash'd the red artillery.

But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave!
And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.

ODE TO THE MEMORY OF BURNS.

SOUL of the poet! wheresoe'er,
Reclaim'd from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality:

Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly, like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and strife at Burns's name,
Exorcised by his memory;

For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And Love's own strain to him was given,
To warble all its ecstasies

With Pythian words unsought, unwill'd;
Love, the surviving gift of Heaven,
The choicest sweet of Paradise,
In life's else bitter cup distill'd.

Who that has melted o'er his lay
To Mary's soul, in Heaven above
But pictured sees, in fancy strong,
The landscape and the livelong day
That smiled upon their mutual love-
Who that has felt forgets the song?

Nor skill'd one flame alone to fan:
His country's high-soul'd peasantry
What patriot-pride he taught! how much
To weigh the inborn worth of man!
And rustic life and poverty

Grow beautiful beneath his touch.

Him, in his clay-built cot, the muse
Entranced, and show'd him all the forms
Of fairy light and wizard gloom
(That only gifted poet views),
The genii of the floods and storms,
And martial shades from Glory's tomb.

On Bannock Field what thoughts arouse
The swain whom Burns's song inspires!
Beat not his Caledonian veins,

As o'er the heroic turf he ploughs,
With all the spirit of his sires,

And all their scorn of death and chains?

And see the Scottish exile, tann'd
By many a far and foreign clime,
Bend o'er his homeborn verse, and weep
In memory of his native land,

With love that scorns the lapse of time,
And ties that stretch beyond the deep.

Encamp'd by Indian rivers wild,
The soldier, resting on his arms,
In Burns's carol sweet recalls

The scenes that bless'd him when a child,
And glows and gladdens at the charms

Of Scotia's woods and waterfalls.

Oh deem not, nid this worldly strife,
An idle art the poet brings;
Let high Philosophy control,
And sages calm the stream of life,
"Tis he refines its fountain-springs,

The nobler passions of the soul.

It is the muse that consecrates
The native banner of the brave,
Unfurling, at the trumpet's breath,
Rose, thistle, harp; 'tis she elates
To sweep the field or ride the wave,
A sunburst in the storm of death.

And thou, young hero, when thy pall
Is cross'd with mournful sword and plume,
When public grief begins to fade,
And only tears of kindred fall,

Who but the bard shall dress thy tomb,
And greet with fame thy gallant shade?

Farewell, high chief of Scottish song!
That couldst alternately impart
Wisdom and rapture in thy page,

And brand each vice with satire strong;
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.

Farewell! and ne'er may Envy dare
To wring one baneful poison drop
From the crush'd laurels of thy bust:
But, while the lark sings sweet in air,
Still may the grateful pilgrim stop
To bless the spot that holds thy dust.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice ere the morning I dream'd it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track:
"Twas Autumn; and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

[young;
In life's morning march, when my bosom was
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers

sung.

Then pledged we the winecup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to

part:

My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart; Stay, stay with us: rest, thou art weary and worn: And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay; But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

TO THE RAINBOW.

TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,

I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art:

Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given

For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dream'd of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold, material laws!

« PreviousContinue »