Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore,
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;

My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed 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 returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

CAMPBELL.

4. THE FEMALE EXILE.

YE hills of my country, soft fading in blue;
The seats of my childhood, for ever adieu !
Yet not for a brighter your skies I resign,
When my wandering footsteps revisit the Rhine:
But sacred to me is the roar of the wave,

That mingles its tide with the blood of the brave;
Where the blasts of the trumpets for battle combine,
And the heart was laid low that gave rapture to mine.

Ye scenes of remembrance that sorrow beguiled,
Your uplands I leave for the desolate wild;
For nature is nought to the eye of despair,

But the image of hopes that have vanished in air:
Again, ye fair blossoms of flower and of tree,

Ye shall bloom to the morn, though ye bloom not for me;
Again your lone wood-paths that wind by the stream,
Be the haunt of the lover-to hope—and to dream.

But never to me shall the summer renew

The bowers where the days of my happiness flew ;

Where my soul found her partner, and thought to bestow
The colours of heaven on the dwellings of wo!
Too faithful recorders of times that are past,
The Eden of Love that was ever to last!
Once more may soft accents your wild echoes fill,
And the young and the happy be worshippers still.

To me ye are lost!—but your summits of green
Shall charm through the distance of many a scene,
In wo, and in wandering, and deserts, return
Like the soul of the dead to the perishing urn!

Ye hills of my country! farewell evermore,

As I leave the dark waves of your rock-rugged shore,
And ask of the hovering gale if it come

From the oak-towering woods on the mountains of home.

BANNERMAN.

5. THE BATTLE OF 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 showed 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-sound 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, volleying like the bolts of Heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.

And redder still these fires shall glow,
On Linden's hills of purpled snow;
And bloodier still shall be the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-cloud rolling dun,
When furious Frank and fiery Hun

Shout 'mid their sulphurous canopy.
The combat deepens: On, ye brave!
Who rush to glory and the grave.
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry!

Oh! few shall part where many meet;
The snow shall be your winding-sheet
And every turf beneath your feet

Shall mark the soldier's cemetery.

CAMPBELL.

6. THE BATTLE OF BUSACO.

BEYOND Busaco's mountains dun,
When far had rolled the sultry sun,
And night her pall of gloom had thrown
O'er nature's still convexity!

High on the heath our tents were spread,
The cold turf was our cheerless bed,
And o'er the hero's dew-chilled head
The banners flapped incessantly.
The loud war-trumpet woke the morn,
The quivering drum, the pealing horn,-
From rank to rank the cry is borne,
"Arouse for death or victory!"

The orb of day, in crimson dye,
Began to mount the morning sky;
Then, what a scene for warrior's eye
Hung on the bold declivity!
The serried bayonets glittering stood,
Like icicles, on hills of blood;
An aerial stream, a silver wood,

Reeled in the flickering canopy.
Like waves of ocean rolling fast,
Or thunder-cloud before the blast,
Massena's legions, stern and vast,
Rushed to the dreadful revelry.

The

pause is o'er; the fatal shock

A thousand thousand thunders woke:
The air grows sick; the mountains rock;
Red ruin rides triumphantly.

Light boiled the war-cloud to the sky,
In phantom towers and columns high,
But dark and dense their bases lie,
Prone on the battle's boundary.
The Thistle waved her bonnet blue,
The Harp her wildest war-notes threw,
The Red Rose gained a fresher hue,
Busaco, in thy heraldry.
Hail, gallant brothers! Wo befall
The foe that braves thy triple wall!
Thy sons, O wretched Portugal!

Roused at their feats of chivalry...

Anonymous

7.-THE VISIONS OF FANCY.

Он! yet, ye dear, deluding visions, stay!
Fond hopes, of innocence and fancy born!
For you I'll cast these waking thoughts away,
For one wild dream of life's romantic morn.

Ah! no the sunshine o'er each object spread

By flattering hope,-the flowers that blew so fair,Like the gay gardens of Armida fled,

And vanished from the powerful rod of care.

So the poor pilgrim, who, in rapturous thought,
Plans his dear journey to Loretto's shrine,
Seems on his way by guardian seraphs brought,-
Sees aiding angels favour his design.

Ambrosial blossoms,-such of old as blew
By those fresh founts on Eden's happy plain,
And Sharon's roses,-all his passage strew:
So fancy dreams; but fancy's dreams are vain.
Wasted and weary on the mountain's side,
His way unknown, the hapless pilgrim lies;
Or takes some ruthless robber for his guide,
And prone
beneath his cruel sabre dies.

Life's morning landscape gilt with orient light,

Where hope, and joy, and fancy hold their reign,The grove's green wave, the blue stream sparkling bright, The blithe hours dancing round Hyperion's wain,—

In radiant colours youth's free hand portrays,
Then holds the flattering tablet to his eye;
Nor thinks how soon the vernal grove decays,
Nor sees the dark cloud gathering o'er the sky.
Hence fancy, conquered by the dart of pain,

And wandering far from her Platonic shade,
Mourns o'er the ruins of her transient reign,
Nor unrepining sees her visions fade.

Their parent banished, hence her children fly,
Their fairy race that filled her festive train;
Joy rears his wreath, and hope inverts her eye,
And folly wonders that her dream was vain.

LANGHORNE.

[blocks in formation]

How are hy servants blest, O Lord!

How sure is their defence!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help omnipotence.

In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by thy care,

Through burning climes I passed unhurt,
And breathed in tainted air.

Thy mercy sweetened every soil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warmed,
And smoothed the Tyrrhene seas.

Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How with affrighted eyes
Thou sawest the wide-extended deep
In all its horrors rise!

Confusion dwelt in every face,

And fear in every heart,

When waves on waves, and gulfs in gulfs,

O'ercame the pilot's art.

Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord,

Thy mercy set me free;

While in the confidence of prayer

My soul took hold on thee.

For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave,

I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
Nor impotent to save.

The storm was laid, the winds retired,
Obedient to thy will;

The sea, that roared at thy command,
At thy command was still.

In midst of dangers, fears, and deaths,

Thy goodness I'll adore;

And praise thee for thy mercies past,
And humbly hope for more.

« НазадПродовжити »