From the silence of the Pyramid Thou hast watch'd the solemn flow Thy heart hath burn'd as shepherds sung And o'er the lonely Grecian streams But go thou to the pastoral vales Go, if thou lov'st the soil to tread, For o'er the snows, and round the pines, The nurture of the peasant's vines A spirit, stronger than the sword, A memory clings to every steep Of long-enduring faith, And the sounding streams glad record keep Of courage unto death. Ask of the peasant where his sires For truth and freedom bled, Ask, where were lit the torturing fires, Where lay the holy dead; And he will tell thee, all around, 130 THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS. Go, when the sabbath bell is heard* Up through the wilds to float, When the dark old woods and caves are stirr'd When forth, along their thousand rills, The mountain people come, Join thou their worship on those hills And while the song of praise ascends, And while the torrent's voice Like the swell of many an organ blends, Rejoice, that human heart, through scorn, Sing aloud Old songs, the precious music of the heart." SING them upon the sunny hills, Sing them along the misty moor, Where ancient hunters roved, Wordsworth. And swell them through the torrent's roar→ The songs our fathers loved! The songs their souls rejoiced to hear When harps were in the hall, And each proud note made lance and spear * See "Gilley's Researches among the mountains of Piedmont," for an interesting description of a sabbath day in the upper regions of the Vaudois. The inhabitants of those Protestant valleys, who, like the Swiss, repair with their flocks and herds to the summits of the hills during the summer, are followed thither by their pastors, and at that season of the year assemble on that sacred day, to worship in the open air. The songs that through our valleys green, Like his own river's voice, have been The reaper sings them when the vale Where the dark rocks that crest our shores So let it be !-a light they shed And link high thoughts to every glen Teach them your children round the hearth, When evening-fires burn clear, And in the fields of harvest mirth, And on the hills of deer! So shall each unforgotten word, When far those loved ones roam, Call back the hearts that once it stirr'd, To childhood's holy home. The green woods of their native land The voices of their household band 1 132 THE BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. LOWLY upon his bier The royal conqueror lay, Down the long minister's aisle, Through mists of incense gleam'd: And by the torch's blaze The stately priest had said They lower'd him, with the sound "Forbear forbear !" it cried, "By the violated hearth Which made way for yon proud shrine, By the harvests which this earth, Hath borne to me and mine; "By the home ev'n here o'erthrown, "Will my sire's unransom'd field To the buried spoiler yield "The tree before him fell Which we cherish'd many a year, "The land that I have till'd, "Here each proud column's bed Shame glow'd on each dark face A little earth for him Whose banner flew so far! One deep voice thus arose From a heart which wrongs had riven-- That were but heard in Heaven ?* For the particulars of this and other scarcely less remarkable circumstances which attended the obsequies of William the Conqueror, see Sismondi's Histoire des Francais, vol. iv. p. 480. |