He saw once more his dark-eyed queen
Among her children stand;
They clasp’d his neck, they kiss’d his cheeks,
They held him by the hand:
A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids,
And fell into the sand.
And then at furious speed he rode
Along the Niger’s bank;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap, he could feel his scabbard of steel,
Smiting his stallion’s flank.
Before him, like a blood-red flag,
The bright flamingoes flew;
From morn till night he follow’d their flight,
O’er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roof of Kaffir huts,
And the ocean rose to view.
At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crush’d the reeds,
Beside some hidden stream;
And it pass’d, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;
And the blast of the desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep, and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver’s whip,
Nor the burning heat of day,
For death had illumined the land of sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
THE SONG OF THE CAMP
“Give us a song,” the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
“We storm the forts to-morrow;
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow.”