And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail ;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
35. THE TEMPEST STILLED. - Rev. J. Gilborne Lyons
THE strong winds burst on Judah's sea,
Far pealed the raging billow,
The fires of Heaven flashed wrathfully,
When Jesus pressed his pillow;
The light frail bark was fiercely tossed,
From surge to dark surge leaping,
For sails were torn and oars were lost,
Yet Jesus still lay sleeping.
When o'er that bark the loud waves roared,
And blasts went howling round her,
Those Hebrews roused their wearied Lord,-
"Lord! help us, or we founder!"
He said, "Ye waters, Peace, be still!"
The chafed waves sank reposing,
As wild herds rest on field and hill,
When clear calm days are closing.
And turning to the startled men,
Who watched the surge subsiding,
He spake in mournful accents, then,
These words of righteous chiding:
ye,
who thus fear wreck and death,
As if by Heaven forsaken,
How is it that ye have no faith,
Or faith so quickly shaken?"
Then, then, those doubters saw with dread
The wondrous scene before them;
86. EXCELSIOR.-H. W. Longfellow.
THE shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who borc, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright
Above, the spectral glaciers shone ;
And from his lips escaped a groan,
This was the peasant's last Good-night.
A voice replied, far up the height,
Excelsior!
At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried, through the startled air
Excelsior!
A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found
Still grasping, in his hand of ice,
That banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!
37. TO THE RAINBOW. -Thomas Campbell. TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud philosophy
To teach me what thou art:
Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given,
For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and Heaven.
Can all that optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?
When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.
When, o'er the green, undeluged earth,
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!
And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
Or earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!
The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When, glittering in the freshened fields
The snowy mushroom springs.
How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town
Or mirrored in the ocean vast.
A thousand fathoms down!
As fresh in yon horizon dark,
As young, thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.
For, faithful to its sacred page,
Heaven still rebuilds thy span
Nor lets the type grow pale with age
That first spoke peace to man.
38. GLENARA.-Thomas Campbell.
O! HEARD you yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,
Where a band cometh slowly, with weeping and wail?
"T is the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;
And her sire and her people are called to her bier.
Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud ;
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud;
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around;
They marched all in silence, they looked to the ground.
In silence they passed over mountain and moor,
To a heath where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar:
"Now here let us place the gray-stone of her cairn;
Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern.
"And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my spouse,
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?"
So spake the rude chieftain: no answer is made,
But each mantle, unfolding, a dagger displayed.
"I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her shroud," Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud: "And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem: Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"
O! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed, and no body was seen
Then a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn
'T was the youth that had loved the fair Ellen of Loru
"I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her grief,
I dreamed that her lord was a barbarous chief;
On the rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem;
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!
In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground,
And the desert revealed where his lady was found:
From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne.
Now joy to the House of fair Ellen of Lorn'
39. THE O'KAVANAGH.-J. A. Shea.
THE Saxons had met, and the banquet was spread,
And the wine in fleet circles the jubilee led;
And the banners that hung round the festal that night
Seemed brighter by far than when lifted in fight.
In came the O'Kavanagh, fair as the morn,
When earth to new beauty and vigor is born;
They shrank from his glance like the waves from the prow,
For nature's nobility sat on his brow.
Attended alone by his vassal and bard, -
No trumpet to herald, no clansmen to guard,
He came not attended by steed or by steel:
No danger he knew, for no fear did he feel.
eye, and on lip, his high confidence smiled,
So proud, yet so knightly-so gallant, yet mild;
He moved like a god through the light of that hall,
And a smile, full of courtliness, proffered to all.
"Come pledge us, lord chieftain! come pledge us!" they cried Unsuspectingly free to the pledge he replied;
And this was the peace-branch O'Kavanagh bore,-
"The friendships to come, not the feuds that are o'er !"
But, minstrel, why cometh a change o'er thy theme?
Why sing of red battle. what dream dost thou dream?
Ha! "Treason!"'s the cry, and "Revenge!" is the call,
As the swords of the Saxons surrounded the hall'
A kingdom for Angelo's mind, to portray
Green Erin's undaunted avenger that day;
The far-flashing sword, and the death-darting eye,
Like some comet commissioned with wrath from the sky.
Through the ranks of the Saxon he hewed his red way, -
Through lances, and sabres, and hostile array.
And, mounting his charger, he left them to tell
The tale of that feast, and its bloody farewell.
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