With thunders from the native oak, She quells the floods below, As they roar on the shore, When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger's troubled night depart. And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean warriors! Our song and feast shall flow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow.
TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art;—
Still seem, as to my childhood's sight, A midway station given For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and heaven.
Can all that optics teach unfold Thy form to please me so, As when I dreamt of gems and gold Hid in thy radiant bow?
When science from Creation's face Enchantment's veil withdraws, What lovely visions yield their place To cold material laws.
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, But words of the Most High, Have told why first thy robe of beams Was woven in the sky.
When o'er the green undeluged
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's gray fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign.
And when its yellow lustre smiled O'er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child, To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, The first-made anthem rang On earth, delivered from the deep, And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye Unraptured greet thy beam; Theme of primeval prophecy Be still the poet's theme!
The earth to thee her incense yields, The lark thy welcome sings, When glittering in the freshened fields The snowy mushroom springs.
How glorious is thy girdle cast O'er mountain tower and town,
Or mirrored in the ocean vast, A thousand fathoms down.
As fresh in yon horizon dark, As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam.
For, faithful to its sacred page, Heaven still rebuilds thy span, Nor lets the type grow pale with age, That first spoke peace to man.
HOHENLINDEN.
BY CAMPBELL.
ON Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow, Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light, The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast array'd Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neigh'd To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riven, Then rushed the steed to battle driven, And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flashed the red artillery,
But redder yet that light shall glow On Linden's hills of stained snow, And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun, Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun, Shout in their sulphurous canopy. The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory or the grave! Wave, Munich! all thy banners' wave! And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few few, shall part where many meet! The snow shall be their winding-sheet, And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
CHILD of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Mingling with her thou lovest in fields of light, And where the flowers of Paradise unfold, Quaff fragant nectar from their cups of gold; There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky, Expand and shut with silent ecstasy.
Yet wast thou once a worm-a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept. And such is man-soon from his cell of clay
To burst, a seraph in the blaze of day.
THE ALPS AT DAYBREAK. BY ROGERS.
THE Sun-beams streak the azure skies, And line with light the mountain's brow; With hounds and horns the hunters rise, And chase the roebuck through the snow.
From rock to rock with giant-bound, High on their own poles they pass, Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound, Rend from above the frozen mass.
The goats wind slow their wonted way, Up craggy steeps and ridges rude; Marked by the wild wolf for his prey, From desert cave or hanging wood.
And while the torrent thunders loud, And as the echoing cliffs reply, The huts peep o'er the mountain cloud, Perched, like an eagle's nest, on high.
How sweet it were, if without feeble fright, Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight, An Angel came to us, and we could bear To see him issue from the silent air
At evening in our room, and bend on ours His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers, News of dear friends, and children who have never Been dead indeed, -as we shall know for ever. Alas! we think not what we daily see About our hearths-angels that are to be Or may be if they will, and we prepare Their souls and ours, to meet in happy air,- A child, a friend, a wife, whose soft heart sings In unison with ours, breeding its future wings.
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