My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
While thus I mused, still gazing, gazing still,
On beds of moss that spread the window-sill,
I deemed no moss my eyes had ever seen
Had been so lovely, brilliant, fresh, and green,
"Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and And guessed some infant hand had placed it worn"; there,
And fain was their war-broken soldier to And prized its hue, so exquisite, so rare.
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
Feelings on feelings mingling, doubling rose;
My heart felt everything but calm repose;
I could not reckon minutes, hours, nor years,
But rose at once, and bursted into tears;
Then, like a fool, confused, sat down again,
And thought upon the past with shame and pain;
I raved at war and all its horrid cost,
And glory's quagmire, where the brave are lost.
WHERE are the men who went forth in the On carnage, fire, and plunder long I mused,
How sweet it was to breathe that cooler air,
And take possession of my father's chair!
Beneath my elbow, on the solid frame,
Appeared the rough initials of my name,
Cut forty years before! The same old clock
Struck the same bell, and gave my heart a shock
I never can forget. A short breeze sprung,
And while a sigh was trembling on my tongue,
Caught the old dangling almanacs behind,
And up they flew like banners in the wind;
Then gently, singly, down, down, down they
went,
And told of twenty years that I had spent
Far from my native land. That instant came
A robin on the threshold; though so tame,
At first he looked distrustful, almost shy,
And cast on me his coal-black steadfast eye,
And seemed to say, -past friendship to renew,
"Ah ha! old worn-out soldier, is it you?"
And cursed the murdering weapons I had used.
Two shadows then I saw, two voices heard,
One bespoke age, and one a child's appeared.
In stepped my father with convulsive start,
And in an instant clasped me to his heart.
Close by him stood a little blue-eyed maid
And stooping to the child, the old man said,
"Come hither, Nancy, kiss me once again;
This is your uncle Charles, come home from
Spain."
SOLDIER, REST! THY WARFARE O'ER.
FROM "THE LADY OF THE LAKE."
SOLDIER, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more ;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armor's clang, or war-steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the daybreak from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here;
Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans or squadrons stamping.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done,
While our slumberous spells assail ye,
Dream not, with the rising sun,
Bugles here shall sound reveille.
Sleep! the deer is in his den;
Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying;
Sleep! nor dream in yonder glen
How thy gallant steed lay dying.
Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done;
Think not of the rising sun,
For, at dawning to assail ye,
Here no bugles sound reveille.
OUT of the clover and blue-eyed grass He turned them into the river-lane; One after another he let them pass,
Then fastened the meadow bars again.
Under the willows, and over the hill,
He patiently followed their sober pace; The merry whistle for once was still, And something shadowed the sunny face.
Only a boy! and his father had said
He never could let his youngest go; Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe.
But after the evening work was done,
And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp, Over his shoulder he slung his gun
And stealthily followed the foot-path damp,
Across the clover and through the wheat
With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet,
And the blind bat's flitting startled him.
CLOSE his eyes; his work is done!
What to him is friend or foeman,
Rise of moon or set of sun,
Hand of man or kiss of woman?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
What cares he? he cannot know;
Lay him low!
Fold him in his country's stars,
Roll the drum and fire the volley!
What to him are all our wars?-
What but death-bemocking folly?
Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
Leave him to God's watching eye;
Trust him to the hand that made him. Mortal love weeps idly by ;
God alone has power to aid him.
DAUGHTER of God! that sit'st on high
Amid the dances of the sky,
And guidest with thy gentle sway
The planets on their tuneful way;
Sweet Peace! shall ne'er again
The smile of thy most holy face,
From thine ethereal dwelling-place,
Rejoice the wretched, weary race
Of discord-breathing men?
Too long, O gladness-giving Queen!
Thy tarrying in heaven has been ;
Too long o'er this fair blooming world
The flag of blood has been unfurled,
Polluting God's pure day;
Whilst, as each maddening people reels,
War onward drives his scythèd wheels,
And at his horses' bloody heels
Shriek Murder and Dismay.
Oft have I wept to hear the cry
Of widow wailing bitterly;
To see the parent's silent tear
For children fallen beneath the spear;
And I have felt so sore
The sense of human guilt and woe,
That I, in Virtue's passioned glow,
Have cursed (my soul was wounded so)
The shape of man I bore!
Then come from thy serene abode,
Thou gladness-giving child of God!
And cease the world's ensanguined strife,
And reconcile my soul to life;
For much I long to see,
Ere I shall to the grave descend,
Thy hand its blessed branch extend,
And to the world's remotest end
Wave Love and Harmony!
Au! whence yon glare, That fires the arch of heaven?-that dark red smoke Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched In darkness, and pure and spangling snow Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!
Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals In countless echoes through the mountains ring, Startling pale midnight on her starry throne! Now swells the intermingling din; the jar Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb; The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout, The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men
Inebriate with rage; - loud, and more loud
The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud. Of all the men
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there,
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause;
Save when the frantic wail of widowed love
Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay
Wrapt round its struggling powers.
The gray morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke
Before the icy wind slow rolls away,
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood
Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,
And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments
Death's self could change not, mark the dread-
ful path
Of the outsallying victors; far behind,
Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen,
Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade,
And to those royal murderers whose mean thrones
Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore,
The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean.
Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround
Their palaces, participate the crimes
That force defends, and from a nation's rage
Secure the crown, which all the curses reach
That famine, frenzy, woe, and penury breathe.
These are the hired bravos who defend
The tyrant's throne.
THERE was a time when Etna's silent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire ;
When, conscious of no danger from below,
She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of snow.
No thunders shook with deep intestine sound
The blooming groves, that girdled her around.
Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines),
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assured,
In peace upon her sloping sides matured.
When on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration lab'ring in her womb,
She teemed and heaved with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling seas and solid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapors rise,
And hang their horrors in the neighb'ring skies,
While through the Stygian veil, that blots the
day,
In dazzling streaks the vivid lightnings play.
But O, what muse, and in what powers of song,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devastation in the van,
It marches o'er the prostrate works of man,
Vines, olives, herbage, forests, disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.
Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninformed and idle mass;
Without a soil to invite the tiller's care,
Or blade, that might redeem it from despair.
Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.
Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.
O bliss precarious, and unsafe retreats!
O charming Paradise of short-lived sweets!
The selfsame gale, that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the distant ear a sullen sound:
Again the mountain feels the imprisoned foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below.
Ten thousand swains the wasted scene deplore,
That only future ages can restore.
Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honor draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who strike the blow, then plead your own defense,
Glory your aim, but justice your pretense;
Behold in Etna's emblematic fires
The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires! Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain,
And tells you where ye have a right to reign,
A nation dwells, not envious of your throne,
Studious of peace, their neighbors', and their own.
Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue
Their only crime, vicinity to you!
The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad,
Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road;
At every step beneath their feet they tread
The life of multitudes, a nation's bread!
Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress
Before them, and behind a wilderness.
Famine, and Pestilence, her first-born son,
Attend to finish what the sword begun;
And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn,
And Folly pays, resound at your return.
A calm succeeds, but Plenty, with her train
Of heartfelt joys, succeeds not soon again, And years of pining indigence must show What scourges are the gods that rule below.
Yet man, laborious man, by slow degrees (Such is his thirst of opulence and ease), Plies all the sinews of industrious toil, Gleans up the refuse of the general spoil, Rebuilds the towers that smoked upon the plain, And the sun gilds the shining spires again.
Increasing commerce and reviving art Renew the quarrel on the conqueror's part And the sad lesson must be learned once more, That wealth within is ruin at the door. What are ye, monarchs, laureled heroes, say, But Etnas of the suffering world ye sway? Sweet Nature, stripped of her embroidered robe, Deplores the wasted regions of her globe; And stands a witness at Truth's awful bar, To prove you there destroyers as ye are.
O, place me in some Heaven-protected isle, Where Peace, and Equity, and Freedom smile; Where no volcano pours his fiery flood, No crested warrior dips his plume in blood; Where Power secures what Industry has won ; Where to succeed is not to be undone ; A land, that distant tyrants hate in vain, In Britain's isle, beneath a George's reign!
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