Puslapio vaizdai
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Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag,

And the waves are white below,

And on, with a haste that cannot lag,

They rush in an endless flow.

Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight

To lands beyond the sea,

And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,
Thou hurriest, wild and free.

Thou hurriest over the myriad waves,
And thou leavest them all behind;

Thou sweepest that place of unknown graves,

Fleet as the tempest wind.

When the night storm gathers dim and dark,

With a shrill and boding scream,

Thou rushest by the foundering bark,

Quick as a passing dream.

Lord of the boundless realm of air,

In thy imperial name,

The hearts of the bold and ardent dare

The dangerous path of fame.

Beneath the shade of thy golden wings,

The Roman legions bore,

From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs,

Their pride, to the polar shore.

For thee they fought, for thee they fell,
And their oath was on thee laid;

To thee the clarions raised their swell,
And the dying warrior prayed.

Thou wert, through an age of death and fears,
The image of pride and power,

Till the gathered rage of a thousand years

Burst forth in one awful hour.

And then a deluge of wrath it came,
And the nations shook with dread;

And it swept the earth till its fields were flame,
And piled with the mingled dead.
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood,
With the low and crouching slave;

And together lay, in a shroud of blood,
The coward and the brave.

And where was then thy fearless flight?
“O'er the dark, mysterious sea,
To the lands that caught the setting light,
The cradle of Liberty.

There on the silent and lonely shore,

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And the world, in its darkness, asked no more

Where the glorious bird had flown.

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But then came a bold and hardy few,

And they breasted the unknown wave;
I caught afar the wandering crew;

And I knew they were high and brave.
I wheeled around the welcome bark,
As it sought the desolate shore,
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark,
My quivering pinions bore.

And now that bold and hardy few

Are a nation wide and strong;

And danger and doubt I have led them through, And they worship me in song;

And over their bright and glancing arms,

On field, and lake, and sea,

With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms,

I guide them to victory."

THE GRAVE OF THE INDIAN CHIEF.

THEY laid the corse of the wild and brave

On the sweet, fresh earth of the new-day grave, On the gentle hill, where wild weeds waved, And flowers and grass were flourishing.

They laid within the peaceful bed,

Close by the Indian chieftain's head, His bow and arrows; and they said

That he had found new hunting grounds,

Where bounteous Nature only tills

The willing soil; and o'er whose hills,
And down beside the shady rills,
The hero roams eternally.

And these fair isles to the westward lie,
Beneath a golden sun-set sky,
Where youth and beauty never die,
And song and dance move endlessly.

They told of the feats of his dog and gun, They told of the deeds his arm had done, They sung of battles lost and won,

And so they paid his eulogy.

And o'er his arms, and o'er his bones, They raised a simple pile of stones; Which, hallowed by their tears and moans, Was all the Indian's monument.

And since the chieftain here has slept,
Full many a winter's winds have swept,

And many an age has softly crept

Over his humble sepulchre.

ESCAPE FROM WINTER.

O, HAD I the wings of a swallow, I'd fly
Where the roses are blossoming all the year long;
Where the landscape is always a feast to the eye,

And the bills of the warblers are ever in song;
O, then I would fly from the cold and the snow,
And hie to the land of the orange and vine,
And carol the winter away in the glow

That rolls o'er the evergreen bowers of the line.

Indeed, I should gloomily steal o'er the deep,

Like the storm-loving petrel, that skims there alone; I would take me a dear little marten to keep A sociable flight to the tropical zone; How cheerily, wing by wing, over the sea,

We would fly from the dark clouds of winter away! And for ever our song and our twitter should be, "To the land where the year is eternally gay."

We would nestle awhile in the jessamine bowers,

And take up our lodge in the crown of the palm, And live, like the bee, on its fruit and its flowers,

That always are flowing with honey and balm; And there we would stay, till the winter is o'er, And April is chequered with sunshine and rainO, then we would fly from that far-distant shore, Over island and wave, to our country again.

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