Woman and Soldier, Priest and Man,
I find within these Lays,
And the closer still th' Verse I scan
The more I see to praise:
Some of these Lyrics shower down
The glories of the Cross and Crown.
V.
To thee, oh Bard! my head I bow,
As I'd not to a King,
And my last word, writ here and now,
Is not a little thing;
Recall the promise of thy strain—
Thou art to "come and sing again!"
THREE NAMES.
Virginia in her proud, Colonial days
Boasts three great names which full of glory shine;
Two glitter like the burnished heads of spears,
the third in tender light is half divine.
Turning that page my eager fancy hears
Trumpets and drums, and fleet on fleet appears.
Those names are graven deep and broad, to last
And outlast Ages: while recording Time
Hands down their story, worth an Epic Rhyme
To light her future by her splendid past:
One planned the Saxon's Empire o'er these lands,—
The other planted it with valiant hands—
The third, with Mercy's soft, celestial beams,
Lights fair romances, histories and dreams.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
Whether in velvet white, slashed, and be-pearled,
And rich in knots of clustering gems a-glow:
Or, in his rusted armor, he unfurled
St. George's Cross by Oronoko's flow;
He was a man to note right well as one
Who shot his arrows straightway at the sun.
Dark was his hair, his beard all crisp and curled.
And narrow-lidded were his piercing eyes,
Anhungered in their glances for a world
That he might win by daring enterprise,—
Explorer, soldier, scholar, poet, he
Not only wrote but acted historie!—
And that great Captain, of our Saxon stock,
Took his last slumber on the ghastly block!