Exalted the mind's faculties and strung The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose, And bountiful, and cruel, and devout,
And quick to draw the sword in private feud. He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed The saints as fervently on bended knees
As ever shaven cenobite. He loved
As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne
The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears
His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks On his pursuers. He aspired to see His native Pisa queen and arbitress Of cities: earnestly for her he raised His voice in council, and affronted death In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck, And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen. He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke, But would have joined the exiles that withdrew For ever, when the Florentine broke in The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts For trophies-but he died before that day. 'He lived, the impersonation of an age That never shall return. His soul of fire Was kindled by the breath of the rude time He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds, Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier, Turning his eye from the reproachful past, And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, And love, and music, his inglorious life.'
THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES
AYE, this is freedom!-these pure skies Were never stained with village smoke: The fragrant wind, that through them flies, Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. Here, with my rifle and my steed,
And her who left the world for me, I plant me, where the red deer feed In the green desert-and am free.
For here the fair savannas know
No barriers in the bloomy grass; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. In pastures, measureless as air,
The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear The branches, falls before my aim.
Mine are the river-fowl that scream From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear that marks my weapon's gleam, Hides vainly in the forest's edge; In vain the she-wolf stands at bay; The brinded catamount, that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey, Even in the act of springing, dies.
With what free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Grey, old, and cumbered with a train
Of vines, as huge, and old, and grey! Free stray the lucid streams, and find
No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.
Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground, Gathers his annual harvest here,
With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.
Here, from dim woods, the aged past Speaks solemnly; and I behold The boundless future in the vast And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew? Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass, And trains the bordering vines, whose blue Bright clusters tempt me as I pass? Broad are these streams-my steed obeys, Plunges, and bears me through the tide; Wide are these woods-I thread the maze Of giant stems, nor ask a guide. I hunt till day's last glimmer dies O'er woody vale and grassy_height; And kind the voice and glad the eyes That welcome my return at night.
WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh awakened land, The thrilling cry of freedom rung, And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand!
Hills flung the cry to hills around,
And ocean-mart replied to mart,
And streams, whose springs were yet unfound, Pealed far away the startling sound
Then marched the brave from rocky steep,
From mountain river swift and cold; The borders of the stormy deep,
The vales where gathered waters sleep, Sent up the strong and bold-
As if the very earth again
Grew quick with God's creating breath, And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men
To battle to the death.
The wife, whose babe first smiled that day, The fair fond bride of yester eve,
And aged sire and matron grey, Saw the loved warriors haste away, And deemed it sin to grieve.
Already had the strife begun ;
Already blood on Concord's plain Along the springing grass had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.
That death-stain on the vernal sward Hallowed to freedom all the shore; In fragments fell the yoke abhorred- The footstep of a foreign lord
Profaned the soil no more.
MATRON! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth have passed, And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil Before the wedding flowers are pale! Ye deem the human heart endures No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.
Yet there are pangs of keener woe,
Of which the sufferers never speak, Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek, Wrung from their eyelids by the shame And guilt of those they shrink to name, Whom once they loved with cheerful will, And love, though fallen and branded, still.
Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; And reverenced are the tears ye shed,
And honoured ye who grieve.
The praise of those who sleep in earth, The pleasant memory of their worth, The hope to meet when life is past, Shall heal the tortured mind at last.
But ye, who for the living lost That agony in secret bear, Who shall with soothing words accost The strength of your despair? Grief for your sake is scorn for them Whom ye lament and all condemn ; And o'er the world of spirits lies
A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.
'MIDST greens and shades the Catterskill leaps, From cliffs were the wood-flower clings;
All summer he moistens his verdant steeps
With the sweet light spray of the mountain springs; And he shakes the woods on the mountain side, When they drip with the rains of autumn-tide.
But when, in the forest bare and old,
The blast of December calls,
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