To the far fight he seeks to gaze,
Where battling arms yet madly blaze,
And with a gush of manly pride,
Weeps as his banner is descried
Above the piling smoke-clouds borne,
Like the first dubious streaks of morn
That o’er the mountains misty height
Will kindle in a lovely sight.
“A foreign soil my blood doth stain,
And the few drops that yet remain
Add but still longer to my pain.
Land of my birth! thy hills no more
May these fast glazing eyes explore,
Yet oh! may not my body rest
Beneath that sod my heart loves best?
My father—home! Joys most adored
Dwell in that simple English word—
Go, comrades! Till your field is won
Forget me—father, I die thy son.”
Hark the wild cry rolls on his ear!
The foe approach who hovered near;
Rings the harsh clang of bick’ring steel
In blows his arm no more may deal.
“Beside me now no longer be,
Ye need not seek to die with me;
Go, friends”—his manly bosom swell’d
With life the stiff’ning wounds withheld;
And struggling to his knees, he shook
The sword his hand had not forsook,
But to his arm it was denied
To slay the foe his heart defied.
The faintly wielded steel was left
In the slight wound it barely cleft.
Borne to the earth by the same thrust,
That smote his en’my to the dust,
His breast receiv’d their cowardly blows—
The fluttering eye-lids slowly close,
Then parting, show the eye beneath
White with the searching touch of Death.
The last thick drops congeal around
The jagged edge of many a wound;
See breaking through the marble skin
The clammy dews that lurk within,
The lip still quivers, but no breath
Seeks the unmoving heart beneath.
Thou gallant Clay—thy name doth cast
A halo o’er the glorious past;
For in the brightness of such blaze
Even Alexander fame decays,
Yes—yes, Columbia’s noble son
Died! Monarchs could no more have done.
[A Valentine.]
Oh! for a brief poetic mood
In which to write a merry line—
A line, which might, could, would or should
Do duty as a Valentine.
Then to the woods the birds repair
In pairs, prepared to woo
A mate whose breast shall fondly share
This world’s huge load of ceaseless care
Which grows so light when borne by two.
But ah! such language will not suit,
I’d better far have still been mute.
My mate is dead or else she’s flown
And I am left to brood alone,
To think of joys of vanish’d years
And banish thus some present tears;
But then our life is but a dream
And things are not what they seem.
[Lines]
Suggested on Visiting the Grave of a Dear Friend.
Like him who mourns a jewel lost
In some unfathomable sea,
The precious gem he cherish’d most—
So, dearest, do I mourn for thee.