The Bivouac of the Dead. THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat No more on life's parade shall meet And glory guards, with solemn round, No rumor of the foe's advance No troubled thought at midnight haunts No vision of the morrow's strife The warrior's dream alarms; Their shivered swords are red with rust, And plenteous funeral tears have washed 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 Like the fierce northern hurricane That sweeps his great plateau, Long has the doubtful conflict raged Not long, our stout old chieftain knew, 'T was in that hour his stern command By rivers of their fathers' gore His first-born laurels grew, And well he deemed the sons would pour Their lives for glory too. Full many a norther's breath had swept O'er Angostura's plain And long the pitying sky has wept That frowned o'er that dread fray. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground, 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 his richest spoil- So, 'neath their parent turf they rest, Borne to a Spartan mother's breast, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead, While Fame her record keeps, Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone, When many a vanished age hath flown, The story how ye fell; Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight, Shall dim one ray of glory's light THEODORE O'HARA. Nearer, my God, to Thee. NEARER, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! Lines on a Skeleton. BEHOLD this ruin! "T was a skull This narrow cell was Life's retreat, This space was Thought's mysterious seat. Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear, Beneath this mouldering canopy If with no lawless fire it gleamed, But through the dews of kindness beamed, Within this hollow cavern hung The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue; And when it could not praise was chained; If bold in Virtue's cause it spoke, Yet gentle concord never broke,— Say, did these fingers delve the mine? Or with the envied rubies shine? |