Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine, fed upon all entrails - men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured;
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress, he died.
The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped, with their cold skeleton hands,
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
- saw, and shrieked, and died – Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void;
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped,
They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave;
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perished; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them. She was the universe.
"Ho! sound the tocsin from the tower,
And fire the culverin !
Bid each retainer arm with speed,
Call every vassal in!
Up with my banner on the wall!
The banquet board prepare!-
Throw wide the portal of my hall,
And bring my armor there!"
A hundred hands were busy then;
The banquet forth was spread
And rang the heavy oaken floor
With many a martial tread;
While from the rich, dark tracery,
Along the vaulted wall,
Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear,
O'er the proud old Gothic hall.
Fast hurrying through the outer gate,
The mailed retainers poured
On through the portal's frowning arch,
And thronged around the board;
While at its head, within his dark,
Carved oaken chair of state,
Armed cap-a-pie, stern Rudiger,
With girded falchion, sate.
"Fill every beaker up, my men!
Pour forth the cheering wine!
There's life and strength in every drop, –
Thanksgiving to the vine!
ye all there, my vassals true?
Mine eyes are waxing dim;
Fill round, my tried and fearless ones,
Each goblet to the brim!
"Ye're there, but yet I see you not!
Draw forth each trusty sword,
And let me hear your faithful steel
Clash once around my board!
I hear it faintly; — louder yet!
What clogs my heavy breath?
Up, all! -and shout for Rudiger,
Bowl rang to bowl, steel clanged to steel,
And rose a deafening cry,
That made the torches flare around,
And shook the flags on high:
"Ho! cravens! do ye fear him?
Slaves! traitors! have ye flown?
Ho! cowards, have ye left me
To meet him here alone?
"But I defy him!- let him come !"
Down rang the massy cup,
While from its sheath the ready blade
Come flashing half-way up;
And with the black and heavy plumes
Scarce trembling on his head,
There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair,
Old Rudiger sat· dead!
HAIL, land of the mountain dominion!
Uplifting thy crest to the day
Where the eagle is bathing his pinion
In clouds that are rolling away.
Oh, say, from the pilgrim descended,
Who trampled on Albion's crown,
Shall we by the cataracts splendid
Refuse thee a wreath of renown?
A wreath of renown from thy evergreen bough,
Entwined with the oak that adorneth thy brow!
What though on the mountains that bore us
The fern in her loneliness waves?
Our forefathers tilled them before us,
And here will we dwell by their graves.
And beloved of thy pure hearted daughters,
Ever true to the brave and the free,
We'll drink of the gush of thy waters,
That leap in the sun to the sea.
Huzza! to the rocks and the glens of the North;
Huzza! to the torrents that herald them forth!
Peace to us is evermore singing
Her songs on thy mountains of dew,
While still at our altars are swinging
The swords that our forefathers drew;
But ah! may we never unsheath them
Again where the carnage awaits,
But to our descendants bequeath them,
To hang upon Liberty's gates,
Encircled with garlands, as blades that were drawn
By the hosts of the Lord, that have conquered and gone.
All hail to thee, Mountain Dominion!
Whose flag in the cloud is unrolled,
Where the eagle is straining his pinion,
And dipping his plumage in gold;
We ask for no hearts that are truer,
No spirits more gifted, than thine;
No skies that are warmer or bluer
Than dawn on thy hemlock and pine.
Ever pure are thy breezes, that herald thee forth,
Green land of my father! thou Rock of the North!
G. D. PRENTICE.
WEEP not that Time
Is passing on, it will ere long reveal
A brighter era to the nations. Hark!
Along the vales and mountains of the earth
There is a deep, portentous murmuring,
Like the swift rush of subterranean streams,
Or like the mingled sounds of earth and air,
When the fierce tempest, with sonorous wing,
Heaves his deep folds upon the rushing winds,
And hurries onward, with his night of clouds,
Against the eternal mountains. T is the voice
Of infant FREEDOM,- and her stirring call
Is heard and answered in a thousand tones
From every hill-top of her western home;
And lo! it breaks across old Ocean's flood,
And "FREEDOM! FREEDOM!" is the answering shout
Of nations, starting from the spell of years.
The day-spring!-see! 't is brightning in the heavens'
The watchmen of the night have caught the sign, -
From tower to tower the signal-fires flash free,
And the deep watchword, like the rush of seas
That heralds the volcano's bursting flame,
Is sounding o'er the earth. Bright years of hope
And life are on the wing!-Yon glorious bow
Of Freedom, bended by the hand of God,
Is spanning Time's dark surges. Its high arch,
A type of Love and Mercy on the cloud,
Tells that the many storms of human life
Will pass in silence, and the sinking waves,
Gathering the forms of glory and of peace,
Reflect the undimmed brightness of the heavens.
You'd scarce expect one of my age
To plead for temperance on the stage;
And should I chance to fall below
Portraying all the drunkard's woe,
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