And Age and Youth,
To patriot Truth,
Pledge hopefully the while.
Our Country's name
Must sink in shame,
Or sound in triumph free;
Then, brothers, on!
For Marion,
Our homes and liberty.
VIII.
'T was morning—from the golden sky
Night fled before day's burning eye,
As flies the minister of sin
From souls that kneel to God, to win
Courage to meet the tempter's wile,
And strength upon the strife to smile.
Scarce had the cloudless sun betrayed,
The flowers that bloomed in meadows low,
Ere toward a thickly shaded glade,
An armed horseman traveled slow;
And paused beside a gushing spring,
Whose gentle murmurs thrilled the air,
As thrills an angel's unseen wing
The distant blue when mounting there.
The dark trees hung above its wave,
A tapestry of green,
And arching o'er the waters, gave
A softness to the sheen
Of mellow light that darted through
The dewy leaves of richest hue;
While round the huge trunks many a vine,
Had bade its graceful tendrils twine;
The blossoming grape and jessamine pale,
Loading with sweets the summer gale.
Not long with hasty step he trod
The narrow path and flowery sod,
Ere gently o'er the sere leaves' bed
A maiden passed with faltering tread.
IX.
Oh! light was the step of the blooming girl,
And glossy the hue of the raven curl,
And joyous the glance of the dark eye's play,
When the pride of the village was Morna Grey.
But ruthless war to her dwelling came,
Her brothers slept on the field of fame,
Her father's blood on his hearth was shed;
And the desolate orphan in anguish fled
To the cottage of one who her childhood nursed,
And who soothed the spirit that grief had cursed;
And now in the depths of that speaking eye
There slumbered a sadness still and high,
But veiled with a clear and mellow light,
Like the softened glow of a moonlit night;
And the rose on her cheek that came and went,
Like the hues of the West when day is spent,
Told how the chords of the heart below,
Quivered and shrunk at the breath of wo.
But why did a presage of coming ill,
With a fiercer pang her bosom thrill,
And pale her cheek to a deadlier hue,
As she sought the spring where the jessamine grew?
She had come to meet for a moment there,
Ere he sought the field in the strife to share,
One who her father had blessed in death,
As she pledged her faith with faltering breath;
And Huon with joyous smile and gay,
Welcomed the presence of Morna Grey.
X.
But the words they spoke were short and few—
A soldier must be to his duty true;
And ere a half hour had hastened by,
She watched his steed as it hurried nigh,
O'er the verdant plain to the cedars tall,
Where his men were waiting their leader's call.
As she dashed the drops that dimmed her sight,
From the dark-fringed lids where they trembled bright,
A rustling was heard in the brushwood near,
And a crone, whose wild and fantastic gear
Betrayed the erring of mind within,
Stood in her presence with mocking grin.
"Said I not sorrows in dark array,
Crowded the future of Morna Grey?
Why from the cheek do the roses fly?
Where is the light of the flashing eye?
Where has the rounded lips, ruby red,
Gone, since we parted beside the dead?
The white owl entered the casement high,
O'er the brow of the dying I saw it fly;
Presager of death! I hailed its wing,
She scorned the omen but felt the sting
Of bitter grief, when another day
Bore her angel Mother from earth away.
I warned her, when on the coming blast
I saw the phantom-like shades flit past;
She smiled on my words as idle play,
But wept when her sire, in the midnight fray,
Felled to the dust by the Tory's blade,
Died in the home where his bones are laid;
When the cold drops stood on the forehead fair,
And the curdling blood on the thin, gray hair.
But the dead in silence forgotten sleep;
She is weaving on earth a vision deep,
Of joyous hopes that must fade and die,
Like the bow that smiles when the tempests fly,
In vain the strength of her youth is shed,
In a path where she trembles and fears to tread;
In vain—in vain would the fragile form,
Brave the hot breath of the cannon's storm;
The bullet speeds on its mission free—
A broken heart and a grave I see."
"Though dark my way, I fear it not;
Speed, woman, to thy sheltered cot,
Lest thou, with no protector nigh,
Should catch some hostile wanderer's eye.
My trust is in that mighty Power,
Who rules the battle's wildest hour;
And woman's love is like the flower
That bloometh not in sunny bower;
But when the dark and solemn night,
Has gathered round with storm and blight,
Unfolds its petals bright and rare,
And sheds its fragrance on the air;
And if it dare and peril all,
Asks only to preserve or fall,
His bleeding land requires his arm—
God will protect the brave from harm."