Alone now wake each solemn height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air;

Your own proud land's heroic soil

Shall be your fitter grave :

She claims from war its richest spoil,

The ashes of her brave.

Thus, 'neath their parent turf they rest,

Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast
On many a bloody shield.
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave,
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave.

Nor shall your glory be forgot

While Fame her record keeps, Or Honor points the hallowed spot Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone

In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished year

The story how ye fell;

hath flown,

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,

Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Can dim one ray of holy light

That gilds your glorious tomb.

HEEL me into the sunshine,
Wheel me into the shadow;

There must be leaves on the woodbine, Is the king-cup crowned in the meadow ?

Wheel me down to the meadow,

Down to the little river;

In sun or in shadow

I shall not dazzle or shiver,
I shall be happy anywhere,
Every breath of the morning air
Makes me throb and quiver.

Stay wherever you will,

By the mount or under the hill,
Or down by the little river:
Stay as long as you please,

Give me only a bud from the trees,
Or a blade of grass in morning dew,

Or a cloudy violet clearing to blue,
I could look on it forever.

Wheel, wheel through the sunshine,
Wheel, wheel through the shadow;
There must be odors round the pine,
There must be balm of breathing kine,
Somewhere down in the meadow.

Must I choose?

Then anchor me there

Beyond the beckoning poplars, where
The larch is snooding her flowery hair
With wreaths of morning shadow.

Among the thicket hazels of the brake
Perchance some nightingale doth shake
His feathers, and the air is full of song;

In those old days, when I was young and strong,
He used to sing on yonder garden tree,

Beside the nursery.

Ah, I remember how I loved to wake,

And find him singing on the selfsame bough (I know it even now)

Where since the flit of bat,

In ceaseless voice he sat,

Trying the spring night over, like a tune,

Beneath the vernal moon;

And while I listed long,
Day rose, and still he sang,
And all his stanchless song,
As something falling unaware,

Fell out of the tall trees he sang among,

Fell ringing down the ringing morn, and rang, Rang like a golden jewel down a golden stair.

Is it too early? I hope not.

But wheel me to the ancient oak,
On this side of the meadow;

Let me hear the raven's croak
Loosened to an amorous note
In the hollow shadow.
Let me see the winter snake
Thawing all his frozen rings
On the bank where the wren sings.
Let me hear the little bell,
Where the red-wing, topmast high,
Looks toward the northern sky,
And jangles his farewell.

Let us rest by the ancient oak,
And see his net of shadow,
His net of barren shadow,

Like those wrestlers' nets of old,
Hold the winter dead and cold,
Hoary winter, white and cold,
While all is green in the meadow.

And when you've rested, brother mine,

Take me over the meadow;

Take me along the level crown
Of the bare and silent down,
And stop by the ruined tower.
On its green scarp, by and by,
I shall smell the flowering thyme,