Puslapio vaizdai
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Yon field that gives the harvest, where the

plough

Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story now.

I stand upon their ashes in thy beam,
The offspring of another race, I stand,

Beside a stream they loved, this valley stream;
And where the night-fires of the quivered

band

Showed the gray oak by fits, and war-song

rung,

I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new

tongue.

Farewell but thou shalt come again! thy

light

Must shine on other changes, and behold

The place of the thronged city still as night— States fallen-new empires built upon the old

But never shalt thou see these realms again Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by savage men.

HYMN TO DEATH.

OH! could I hope the wise and pure in heart Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,—

I would take up the hymn to Death, and say To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee

And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow

They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world,
Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair,
The loved, the good-that breathest on the

lights

Of virtue set along the vale of life,

And they go out in darkness. I am come,
Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers,
Such as have stormed thy stern, insensible ear
From the beginning. I am come to speak
Thy praises. True it is that I have wept
Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again ;
And thou from some I love wilt take a life
Dear to me as my own.
Yet while the spell
Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee

In sight of all thy trophies, face to face,
Meet is it that my voice should utter forth
Thy nobler triumphs; I will teach the world
To thank thee. Who are thine accusers!-

Who?

The living

they who never felt thy power,

And know thee not. The curses of the wretch

Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy

hand

Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,

Are writ among thy praises. But the goodDoes he whom thy kind hand dismissed to

peace,

Upbraid the gentle violence that took off
His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell?

Raise then the hymn to Death. Deliverer! God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed And crush the oppressor. When the armed chief,

The conqueror of nations, walks the world,
And it is changed beneath his feet, and all
Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm—
Thou, while his head is loftiest and his heart
Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand
Almighty, thou dost set thy sudden grasp
Upon him, and the links of that strong chain
Which bound mankind are crumbled; thou
dost break

VOL. I.

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