With slow tread and still tread By the gaunt and shadowy pine; Gives no warning sign. The dark wave, the plumed wave, A sharp clang, a steel clang, In the camp a spy hath found; With calm brow, steady brow, He listens to his doom; In his look there is no fear, Nor a shadow-trace of gloom; But with calm brow and steady brow He robes him for the tomb. In the long night, the still night, He walks where Christ hath trod. 'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn, He dies upon the tree; And he mourns that he can lose But one life for Liberty; And in the blue morn, the sunny morn, His spirit-wings are free. But his last words, his message-words, With his last words, his dying words, From Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf, The sad of earth, the glad of heaven, The name of HALE shall burn! HE muffled drum's sad roll has beat No more on life's parade shall meet On Fame's eternal camping-ground And glory guards, with solemn round, No rumor of the foe's advance Now swells upon the wind: No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind: No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms, No braying horn or screaming fife Their shivered swords are red with rust, Their pluméd heads are bowed, Their haughty banner, trailed in dust, Is now their martial shroud, And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now. The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal, Those breasts that nevermore may feel Like the fierce Northern hurricane Break o'er the field beneath, Was victory or death. Full many a mother's breath has swept O'er Angostura's plain, And long the pitying sky has wept Above its mouldered slain. The raven's scream or eagle's flight, |