The pathos which from rival eyes
Unwilling tears could summon,
The stinging taunt, the fiery burst
Of hatred scarcely human!

Mirth, sparkling like a diamond shower,
From lips of life-long sadness;
Clear picturings of majestic thought
Upon a ground of madness;
And over all Romance and Song
A classic beauty throwing,
And laurelled Clio at his side
Her storied pages showing.

All parties feared him: each in turn
Beheld its schemes disjointed,
As right or left his fatal glance
And spectral finger pointed.
Sworn foe of Cant, he smote it down
With trenchant wit unsparing,
And, mocking, rent with ruthless hand
The robe Pretence was wearing.

Too honest or too proud to feign
A love he never cherished,
Beyond Virginia's border line

His patriotism perished.

While others hailed in distant skies

Our eagle's dusky pinion,

He only saw the mountain bird

Stoop o'er his Old Dominion!

Still through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning,

His loving faith in Mother-land

Knew never shade of turning;

By Britain's lakes, by Neva's wave,
Whatever sky was o'er him,
He heard her rivers' rushing sound,
Her blue peaks rose before him.

RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

He held his slaves, yet made withal
No false and vain pretences,
Nor paid a lying priest to seek
For scriptural defences.

His harshest words of proud rebuke,
His bitterest taunt and scorning,
Fell fire-like on the Northern brow
That bent to him in fawning.

He held his slaves: yet kept the while
His reverence for the Human;
In the dark vassals of his will

He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God's outraged poor
His Roanoke valley entered;
No trader in the souls of men

Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man
Laid down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
His brother man stood weeping,

His latest thought, his latest breath,
To Freedom's duty giving,
With failing tongue and trembling hand
The dying blest the living.

O, never bore his ancient State
A truer son or braver !

None trampling with a calmer scorn

On foreign hate or favor.

He knew her faults, yet never stooped
His proud and manly feeling
To poor excuses of the wrong
Or meanness of concealing.

But none beheld with clearer eye

The plague-spot o'er her spreading, None heard more sure the steps of Doom Along her future treading.

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For her as for himself he spake,

When, his gaunt frame upbracing,
He traced with dying hand " REMORSE!
And perished in the tracing.

As from the grave where Henry sleeps,
From Vernon's weeping willow,
And from the grassy pall which hides
The Sage of Monticello,

So from the leaf-strewn burial-stone
Of Randolph's lowly dwelling,
Virginia! o'er thy land of slaves
A warning voice is swelling!

And hark! from thy deserted fields
Are sadder warnings spoken,

From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons
Their household gods have broken.

The curse is on thee, wolves for men,

And briers for corn-sheaves giving!

O, more than all thy dead renown
Were now one hero living!

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

55

S

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

PEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away, O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near? Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

"Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls; Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!"

Who is losing? who is winning? — « Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain.”

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look once more: "Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course."

Look forth once more, Ximena! "Ah! the smoke has rolled away; And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon wheels;

There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.

"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on : Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who has won? "Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall,

O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all!"

"Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting: Blessed Mother, save my brain!

I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain. Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; now they fall, and strive

to rise;

Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes!"

"O my heart's love! O my dear one! lay thy poor head on my

knee;

Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee?

canst thou sce?

Canst thou hear me?

O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal, look once more On the blessed cross before thee! mercy! mercy! all is o'er!"