Page images
PDF
EPUB

On them, hussars! Now give them rein and heel;

Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire—
Earth cries for blood! In thunder on them wheel!
This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph seal!"

"Hark to the bugle's roundelay!

Boot and saddle! Up and away !
Mount and ride as ye ne'er rode before;

Spur up till horses' flanks run gore!

your

Ride for the sake of human lives;

Ride as ye would were your sisters and wives
Cowering under their scalping-knives.

Boot and saddle! Away, away!"

"The war that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swell'd the gale,
And Stanley! was the cry;
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:

With dying hand above his head

He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!

[ocr errors]

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!

Were the last words of Marmion."

"O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands, 'Fix bay'nets-charge!' Like mountain-storm rush on these fiery

bands.

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy! hark to that fierce huzza!

'Revenge! remember Limerick! dash down the Sassenagh!'

Like lions leaping at a fold when mad with hunger's pang,

Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang.

The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, fled:

The green hill-side is matted close with dying and with dead.

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,

With bloody plumes the Irish stand: the field is fought and won."

"Now,
men! now is your time!
Make ready! take aim! fire!"

"An hour passed on ;-the Turk awoke ;

That bright dream was his last ;

He woke to hear his sentry shriek

'To arms! They come ! The Greek! The Greek!' He woke to die midst flame and smoke, And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,

And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, Bozzaris cheer his band ;

'Strike-till the last armed foe expires! Strike-for your altars and your fires! green graves of your sires! God-and your native land!""

Strike-for the

"The combat dèepens. On ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the gràve!
Wave, Munich! all thy bànners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!"

"Thou slave! thou wretch! thou coward!
Thou little valiant, great in villany!
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou Fortune's champion, thou dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety! thou art perjured, too,
And sooth'st up greatness. What a fòol art thou,
A ramping fool; to brag, and stamp, and swear
Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,
Hast thou not spoken like thunder on my side?
Been sworn my soldier! bidding me depend
Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength?
And dost thou now fall over to my foes?
Thou wear a lion's hide! doff it for shame,
And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs."

"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death

Rode the Six Hundred.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"Silence, how dead! darkness, how profound!
No eye, nor listening ear an object finds:
Creation sleeps. "Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,—
An awful pause! prophetic of her end."

I had a dream which was not all a dream:
The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless; and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day.

-Byron.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo! there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth.

And

And every mountain and island And the kings of the earth, and

the heavens departed as a scroll. were moved out of their places. the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves, and cried to the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne. -Bible.

He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under His feet. He made darkness His secret place. His pavilion

round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

-Bible.

But at midnight,—strange, mystic hour!--when the veil between the frail present and the eternal future grows thin, then came the messenger!-Harriet Beecher Stowe.

"Oh! I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 't were to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time!

-My dream was lengthened after life:—
Oh! then began the tempest to my soul !—
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling waked, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream!

[ocr errors]

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

"Thou breathest;—and the obedient storm is still :
Thou speakest;-silent the submissive wave:
Man's shattered ship the rushing waters fill;
And the hushed billows roll across his grave.
Sourceless and endless God! compared with Thee,
Life is a shadowy, momentary dream;
And time, when viewed through Thy eternity,

Less than the mote of morning's golden beam.”

"It thunders! Sons of dust, in rev'rence bow!
Ancient of Days! thou speakest from above.
Almighty! trembling like a timid child,
I hear thy awful voice.

Examples of Reverence.

"Father! Thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns; Thou

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They in Thy sun
Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,-
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion.with his Maker!"

"Oh, listen, man!

A voice within us speaks that startling word,
'Man, thou shalt never die!' Celestial voices
Hymn it unto our souls; according harps,
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality."

And you, ye storms, howl out his greatness! Let your thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies! Let your

« PreviousContinue »