How nice the mind that sculptured | Have such e'er been? Remember Can them with thought, ning's name! And triumph glistening in the clear Do such still live? Let "Alaric's Dirge" with snow, sung. Since thou wast laid its budding leaves One leap of Ocean scatters on the sand The quarried bulwarks of the loosening land; below, Thine image mingles with my closing strain, As when we wandered by the turbid Seine, Both blest with hopes, which revelled, bright and free, On all we longed, or all we dreamed to be; To thee the amaranth and the cypress fell, And I was spared to breathe this last farewell! One thrill of earth dissolves a century's toil Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil; One hill o'erflows, and cities sink below, Their marbles splintering in the lava's glow; But one sweet tone, scarce whispered to the air, From shore to shore the blasts of ages bear; But lived there one in unremembered One humble name, which oft, perchance, has borne days, Or lives there still, who spurns the poet's The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's scorn, bays, Whose fingers, dewy from Castalia's Towers o'er the dust of earth's forgotten Rest on the lyre, yet scorn to touch the As once, emerging through the waste of strings? waves, Who shakes the senate with the silver The rocky Titan, round whose shattered The groves of Pindus might have sighed Coiled the last whirlpool of the drowning sphere ! to own? THE STEAMBOAT. SEE how you flaming herald treads She rends the clinging sea, That flies before the roaring wind, And many a foresail, scooped and strained, Shall break from yard and stay, Before this smoky wreath has stained The rising mist of day. Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, I see yon quivering mast; The black throat of the hunted cloud The morning spray, like sea-born flow- An hour, and, whirled like winnowing Streams o'er the shining bay, When winds are loud, and billows reel, O think of those for whom the night She thunders foaming by ; When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green That skirts her gleaming sides. Now, like a wild nymph, far apart She veils her shadowy form, The beating of her restless heart Still sounding through the storm; Now answers, like a courtly dame, The reddening surges o'er, With flying scarf of spangled flame, The Pharos of the shore. To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, Who trims his narrowed sail; To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep Her broad breast to the gale ; Shall never wake in day! LEXINGTON. SLOWLY the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. Waving her golden veil Over the silent dale, Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; Hushed was his parting sigh, While from his noble eye Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. Many a belted breast On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing Calmly the first-born of glory have Ere the dark hunters the herd have met ; Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! Look with their life-blood the young grass is wet! Faint is the feeble breath, Murmuring low in death, "Tell to our sons how their fathers have died"; Nerveless the iron hand, Raised for its native land, Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, passed by. Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; Far as the tempest thrills Over the darkened hills, Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, Roused by the tyrant band, Woke all the mighty land, From their far hamlets the yeomanry Girded for battle, from mountain to Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and Voiceless the trumpet horn, high; merry Christmas chimes; |