His listening brethren stood around, Less than a God they thought there could not dwell That spoke so sweetly and so well. The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum, Cries, "Hark! the foes come; Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat!" The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion For the fair disdainful dame. But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach The sacred Organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways Orpheus could lead the savage race, Sequacious of the lyre; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher; When to her Organ vocal breath was given, As from the power of sacred lays So when the last and dreadful hour J. Dryden. COV. THE SAILOR'S SONG. THE sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round; Or like a cradled creature lies. I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea ! I am where I would ever be ; With the blue above, and the blue below, If a storm should come and awake the deep, I love, O how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, I never was on the dull, tame shore, The waves were white, and red the morn, I've lived since then, in calm and strife, With wealth to spend and a power to range, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea! B. W. Proctor, CCVI. NAPOLEON. HIS falchion flashed along the Nile; His hosts he led through Alpine snows; O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while, His eagle flag unrolled, Here sleeps he now, alone! and froze. Not one Of all the kings, whose crowns he gave, Bends o'er his dust; nor wife, nor son, Has ever seen or sought his grave. Behind this sea-girt rock, the star That led him on from crown to crown, Has sunk; and nations from afar Gazed as it faded and went down. Far, far below, by storms is curled; As round him heaved, while high he stood, Alone he sleeps! The mountain cloud That night hangs round him, and the breath That wraps the conqueror's clay in death. Pause here! The far-off world, at last, Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its mitres cast, Lies powerless now beneath these stones. Hark! comes there, from the pyramids, And Europe's hills, a voice that bids The only, the perpetual dirge That's heard there, is the sea-bird's cry, — The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh. CCVII. WARREN'S ADDRESS AT BUNKER HILL. STAND! the ground's your own, my braves! Will ye look for greener graves? Hope ye mercy still? What's the mercy despots feel? Hear it in that battle peal! TO him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks - Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, The all-beholding sun shall see no more |