When Jubal struck the chorded shell
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum,
Cries, "Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat!"
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred Organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre;
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;
When to her Organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appeared--
Mistaking earth for heaven!
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on highs
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.
J. Dryden.
CCV.
THE SAILOR'S SONG.
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoever I go;
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, O how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea!
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean-child!
I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!
B. W. Proctor.
CCVI.
NAPOLEON.
His falchion flashed along the Nile;
His hosts he led through Alpine snows;
O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while,
His eagle flag unrolled,--and froze.
Here sleeps he now, alone! Not one
Of all the kings, whose crowns he gave,
Bends o'er his dust;--nor wife, nor son,
Has ever seen or sought his grave.
Behind this sea-girt rock, the star
That led him on from crown to crown,
Has sunk; and nations from afar
Gazed as it faded and went down.
High is his couch;--the ocean flood,
Far, far below, by storms is curled;
As round him heaved, while high he stood
A stormy and unstable world.
Alone he sleeps! The mountain cloud
That night hangs round him, and the breath
Of morning scatters, is the shroud
That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.
Pause here! The far-off world, at last,
Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones,
And to the earth its mitres cast,
Lies powerless now beneath these stones.
Hark! comes there, from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,
And Europe's hills, a voice that bids
The world he awed to mourn him? No:
The only, the perpetual dirge
That's heard there, is the sea-bird's cry,--
The mournful murmur of the surge,--
The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.
J. Pierpont.
CCVII.
WARREN'S ADDRESS AT BUNKER HILL.
Stand! the ground's your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?
What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it--ye who will.
Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they're a-fire!
And, before you, see--
Who have done it!--from the vale
On they come!--and will ye quail?--
Leaden rain and iron hail
Let their welcome be!
In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, and die we must;--
But, O! where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,
As where heaven its dews shall shed
On martyred patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell!
J. Pierpont.
CCVIII.
THANATOPSIS.
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,--
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice:--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet if the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone--nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world,--with kings,
The powerful of the earth,--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.--The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are dining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and traverse Barca's desert sands;
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,--yet--the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep;--the dead reign there alone.--
So shalt thou rest--and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
W. C. Bryant.
CCIX.
THE AFRICAN CHIEF.
Chained in the market-place he stood,
A man of giant frame,
Amid the gathering multitude
That shrunk to hear his name,--
All stern of look and strong of limb,
His dark eye on the ground;
And silently they gazed on him,
As on a lion bound.
Vainly, but well, that chief had fought--
He was a captive now;
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not,
Was written on his brow:
The scars his dark broad bosom wore
Showed warrior true and brave:
A prince among his tribe before,
He could not be a slave.
Then to his conqueror he spake--
"My brother is a king:
Undo this necklace from my neck,
And take this bracelet ring,
And send me where my brother reigns,
And I will fill thy hands
With store of ivory from the plains,
And gold dust from the sands."
--"Not for thy ivory nor thy gold
Will I unbind thy chain;
That bloody hand shall never hold
The battle-spear again.
A price thy nation never gave
Shall yet be paid for thee;
For thou shalt be the Christian's slave,
In land beyond the sea."
Then wept the warrior chief, and bade
To shred his locks away,
And, one by one, each heavy braid
Before the victor lay.
Thick were the platted locks, and long,
And deftly hidden there
Shone many a wedge of gold among
The dark and crispèd hair.
"Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold,
Long kept for sorest need:
Take it--thou askest sums untold--
And say that I am freed.
Take it--my wife, the long, long day,
Weeps by the cocoa-tree,
And my young children leave their play,
And ask in vain for me."
--"I take thy gold,--but I have made
Thy fetters fast and strong,
And ween that by the cocoa shade
Thy wife shall wait thee long."
Strong was the agony that shook
The captive's frame to hear,
And the proud meaning of his look
Was changed to mortal fear.
His heart was broken,--crazed his brain--
At once his eye grew wild:
He struggled fiercely with his chain,
Whispered,--and wept,--and smiled;
Yet wore not long those fatal bands,
And once, at shut of day,
They drew him forth upon the sands,--
The foul hyena's prey.
W. C. Bryant.
CCX.
THE BATTLE-FIELD.
Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armed hands
Encounter'd in the battle-cloud.
Ah! never shall the land forget
How gush'd the life-blood of her brave,--
Gush'd, warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.
Now all is calm, and fresh, and still;
Alone the chirp of flitting birds
And talk of children on the hill,
And bell of wandering kine, are heard.
No solemn host goes trailing by
The black-mouth'd gun and staggering wain;
Men start not at the battle-cry:
Oh, be it never heard again!
Soon rested those who fought; but thou
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.
A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year;
A wild and many-weapon'd throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot;
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown--yet faint thou not,
Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.
Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
When they who help'd thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust
Like those who fell in battle here.
Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet's mouth is peal'd
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.
W. C. Bryant.
CCXI.
HALLOWED GROUND.
What's hallowed ground! Has earth a clod
Its Maker meant not should be trod
By man, the image of his God,
Erect and free,
Unscourged by Superstition's rod
To bow the knee?
That's hallowed ground--where mourned and missed,
The lips repose our love has kissed;--
But where's their memory's mansion? Is 't
Yon churchyard's bowers?
No; in ourselves their souls exist,
A part of ours.
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
'T is not the sculptured piles you heap!
In dews that heavens far distant weep,
Their turf may bloom;
Or genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind--And
is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
Is 't death to fall for freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies in Heaven's sight
The sword he draws:--
What can alone ennoble fight?
A noble cause!
Give that! and welcome war to brace
Her drums! and rend heaven's reeking space!
The colors painted face to face,
The charging cheer,
Though Death's pale horse led on the chase,
Shall still be dear!
And place our trophies where men kneel
To Heaven!--but Heaven rebukes my zeal!
The cause of truth and human weal,
O God above!
Transfer it from the sword's appeal
To peace and love!
Peace, love! the cherubim, that join
Their spread wings o'er devotion's shrine;--
Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine
Where they are not;--
The heart alone can make divine
Religion's spot.
To incantations dost thou trust,
And pompous rites in domes august?
See mouldering stones and metals' rust
Belie the vaunt,
That man can bless one pile of dust
With chime or chant.
Fair stars! are not your beings pure?
Can sin, can death your worlds obscure?
Else why so swell the thoughts at your
Aspect above?
Ye must be Heaven's that make us sure
Of heavenly love!
And in your harmony sublime
I read the doom of distant time;
That man's regenerate soul from crime
Shall yet be drawn,
And reason on his mortal clime
Immortal dawn.
What's hallowed ground? 'T is what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!--
Peace! independence! truth! go forth
Earth's compassed round;
And your high-priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground.
T. Campbell.
CCXII.
THE EXILE OF ERIN.
There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,--
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sighed, when, at twilight, repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill:
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion;
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once, in the fervor of youth's warm emotion,
He sung the bold anthem of "Erin go bragh!"
"Sad is my fate!" said the heart-broken stranger--
"The wild deer and wolf to the covert can flee;
But I have no refuge from famine and danger:
A home and a country remain not to me!
Never again in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with wild woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of 'Erin go bragh!'
"Erin! my country! though sad and forsaken
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore!
But, alas! in a far, foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more!
O cruel fate, wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace, where no perils can chase me?
Never again shall my brothers embrace me!
They died to defend me!--or live to deplore!
"Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood?
Sisters and sire, did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all?
Ah! my sad soul, long abandoned by pleasure!
Why did it dote on a fast-fading treasure?
Tears, like the rain-drops, may fall without measure,
But rapture and beauty they cannot recall!
"Yet all its sad recollections suppressing,
One dying wish my lone bosom can draw;--
Erin! an exile bequeaths thee his blessing!
Land of my forefathers! Erin go bragh!
Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion,
Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean!
And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,
'Erin mavournin--Erin go bragh!'"
T. Campbell.
CCXIII.
LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER.
A chieftain to the Highlands bound,
Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound
To row us o'er the ferry!"
"Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water?"
"O I'm the chief of Ulva's isle.
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter.
"And fast before her father's men
Three days we've fled together,
For should he find us in the glen,
My blood would stain the heather.
"His horsemen hard behind us ride--
Should they our steps discover,
Then who will cheer my bonny bride,
When they have slain her lover!"
Out spoke the hardy highland wight,
"I'll go, my chief, I'm ready:
It is not for your silver bright,
But for your winsome lady:--
"And by my word! the bonny bird
In danger shall not tarry;
So, though the waves are raging white,
I'll row you o'er the ferry."
By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water-wraith was shrieking;
And, in the scowl of heaven, each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.
But still as wilder blew the wind,
And as the night grew drearer,
Adown the glen rode armed men,--
Their trampling sounded nearer.
"O haste thee, haste!" the lady cries,
"Though tempests round us gather;
I'll meet the raging of the skies,
But not an angry father."
The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her,--
When O! too strong for human hand,
The tempest gathered o'er her.
And still they rowed amidst the roar
Of waters fast prevailing:
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore,--
His wrath was changed to wailing!
For, sore dismayed, through storm and shade
His child he did discover:--
One lovely hand she stretched for aid,
And one was round her lover.
"Come back! Come back!" he cried in grief,
"Across this stormy water:
And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter!--O my daughter!"
'T was vain: the loud waves lashed the shore,
Return or aid preventing:
The wafers wild went o'er his child,
And he was left lamenting.
T. Campbell.
CCXIV.
FALL OF WARSAW.
O! sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile,
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile,
When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars
Her whiskered pandours and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn;
Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van,
Presaging wrath to Poland--and to man!
Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed,
Wide o'er the fields a waste of ruin laid--
O Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save!
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high,
And swear for her to live!--with her to die!
He said; and on the rampart heights arrayed
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed;
Firm paced and slow, a horrid front they form,
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm;
Low, murmuring sounds along their banners fly,--
"Revenge, or death!"--the watchword and reply;
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm,
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm!
In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few!
From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew;--
O! bloodiest picture in the book of Time,
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career.
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked, as Kosciusko fell!
0 righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave,
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save?
Where was thine arm, O vengeance! where thy rod,
That smote the foes of Sion and of God?
Departed spirits of the mighty dead!
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!
Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van!
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,
And make her arm puissant as your own!
O! once again to Freedom's cause return
The patriot Tell,--the Bruce of Bannockburn!
Yes, thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see
that man hath yet a soul,--and dare be free!
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The starless night of Desolation reigns;
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,
And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heaven!
Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled,
Her name, her nature, withered from the world!
T. Campbell.
CCXV.
HOHENLINDEN.
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the 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 arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neighed
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riven;
Then rushed the steed, to battle driven;
And louder than the bolts of Heaven
Far flashed the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow,
On Linden's hills of stainéd snow;
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
'T is morn; but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulphurous 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.
T. Campbell.
CCXVI.
WAR-SONG OF THE GREEKS, 1822.
Again to the battle Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;
Our land,--the first garden of Liberty's tree--
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free;
For the cross of our faith is replanted,
The pale, dying crescent is daunted,
And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves
May be washed out in blood from our forefather's graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,
And the sword shall to glory restore us.
Ah! what though no succor advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances
Are stretched in our aid?--Be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone;
For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,
By the virgins they've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,--
That living we will be victorious,
Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious.
A breath of submission we breathe not;
The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not;
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide--waves engulf--fire consume us,
But they shall not to slavery doom us:
If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves,--
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on land are before us.
To the charge!--Heaven's banner is o'er us!
This day--shall ye blush for its story?
Or brighten your lives with its glory?--
Our women--O say, shall they shriek in despair,
Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair?
Accursed may his memory blacken,
If a coward there be that would slacken,
Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth
Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth.
Strike home!--and the world shall revere us
As heroes descended from heroes.
Old Greece lightens up with emotion
Her inlands, her isles of the ocean:
Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee sing,
And the Nine shall new-hallow their Helicon's spring.
Our hearths shall be kindled with gladness,
That were cold, and extinguished in sadness;
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms,
Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,--
When the blood of you Mussulman cravens
Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens.
T. Campbell.
CCXVII.
THE FLIGHT OF XERXES.