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النشر الإلكتروني

SEVENTY-SIX.

I sometimes dream their pleasant smiles
Still on me sweetly fall!
Their tones of love I faintly hear
My name in sadness call.
I know that they are happy

With their angel plumage on ;
But my heart is very desolate,
To think that they are gone.

395

LX-SEVENTY-SIX.

W. C. BRYANT.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung
When, through the fresh awakened land,
The thrilling cry of freedom rung,
And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around,

And ocean mart replied to mart

And streams, whose springs were yet unfound,
Pealed far away the startling sound

Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep,
From mountain river swift and cold;

The borders of the stormy deep,

The vales where gathered waters sleep,
Sent up the strong and bold,-

As if the very earth again

Grew quick with God's creating breath,
And, from the sods of grove and glen,
Rose ranks of lion-hearted men

To battle to the death.

Already had the strife begun;

Already blood on Concord's plain Along the springing grass had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.

That death stain on the vernal sward
Hallowed to freedom all the shore;
In fragments fell the yoke abhorred—
The footstep of a foreign lord
Profaned the soil no more.

LXI-THE HURRICANE.

LORD of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!

W. C. BRYANT

And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,

The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come ;

While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.

They darken fast; and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray—
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,

While the hurricane's distant voice is heard,
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.

He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!

How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space.

DEATH OF HARRISON.

Darker-still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air :
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.

397

LXII.-DEATH OF HÁRRISON.

N. P. WILLIS.

WHAT! Soar'd the old eagle to die at the sun!

Lies he stiff with spread wings at the goal he had won!
Are there spirits more blest than the "Planets of Even,"
Who mount to their zenith, then melt into Heaven-
No waning of fire, no quenching of ray,

But rising, still rising, when passing away?

Farewell, gallant eagle! thou'rt buried in light!
God-speed into Heaven, lost star of our night!

Death! Death in the White House! Ah, never before,
Trod his skeleton foot on the President's floor!
He is look'd for in hovel, and dreaded in hall—
The king in his closet keeps hatchment and pall—
The youth in his birth-place, the old man at home,
Make clean from the door-stone the path to the tomb ;-
But the lord of this mansion was cradled not here-
In a church-yard far off stands his beckoning bier.

He is here as the wave-crest heaves flashing on high—
As the arrow is stopp'd by its prize in the sky—
The arrow to earth and the foam to the shore-
Death finds them when swiftness and sparkle are o'er—
But Harrison's death fills the climax of story-
He went with his old stride-from glory to glory!

Lay his sword on his breast! There's no spot on its blade In whose cankering breath his bright laurels will fade! 'Twas the first to lead on at humanity's call—

It was stay'd with sweet mercy when "glory" was all!

As calm in the council as gallant in war,

He fought for his country, and not its “hurrah!"
In the path of the hero with pity he trod—

Let him pass—with his sword—to the presence of God!

What more? Shall we on, with his ashes? Yet, stay!
He hath ruled the wide realm of a king in his day!
At his word, like a monarch's, went treasure and land—
The bright gold of thousands has pass'd through his hand—
Is there nothing to show of his glittering hoard?
Nor jewel to deck the rude hilt of his sword-

No trappings ?-no horses ?—what had he, but now?
On!-on with his ashes!-HE LEFT BUT HIS PLOUGH!
Brave old Cincinnatus! Unwind ye his sheet!

Let him sleep as he lived—with his purse at his feet!

Follow now, as ye list! The first mourner to-day
Is the nation-whose father is taken away!

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Wife, children, and neighbor, may moan at his knell—
He was
lover and friend" to his country, as well!
For the stars on our banner, grown suddenly dim,
Let us weep, in our darkness—but weep not for him!
Not for him—who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him-who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him-who ascended Fame's ladder so high
From the round at the top he has stepp'd to the sky!

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

LXIII. THE HAPPIEST LAND.

FROM THE GERMAN.

THERE sat one day in quiet,
By an ale-house on the Rhine,
Four hale and hearty fellows,
And drank the precious wine.

The landlord's daughter filled their cups,
Around the rustic board;

Then sat they all so calm and still,

And spake not one rude word.

HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS.

399

But, when the maid departed,

A Swabian raised his hand,

And cried, all hot and flushed with wine,

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Long live the Swabian land!

The greatest kingdom upon

earth

Cannot with that compare;
With all the stout and hardy men
And the nut brown maidens there."

"Ha!" cried a Saxon, laughing,-
And dashed his beard with wine;
"I had rather live in Lapland,

Than that Swabian land of thine! The goodliest land of all this earth, It is the Saxon land!

There have I as many maidens

As fingers on this hand!"

"Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!" A bold Bohemian cries;

"If there's a heaven upon this earth,

In Bohemia it lies.

There the tailor blows the flute,

And the cobbler blows the horn,

And the miner blows the bugle,
Over mountain gorge and bourne."

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And then the landlord's daughter

Up to heaven raised her hand,
And said, "Ye may no more contend,—
There lies the happiest land!"

LXIV.-HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS.

AT THE CONSECRATION OF PULASKI'S BANNER.

TAKE thy banner! May it wave
Proudly o'er the good and brave;
When the battle's distant wail
Breaks the sabbath of our vale,

H. W. LONGFELLOW

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