The monk, with unavailing cares, A lady's voice was in his ear, And that the priest he could not hear, For that she ever sung, "In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!" So the notes rung; "Avoid thee, fiend! - - with cruel hand, Shake not the dying sinner's sand!' O look, my son, upon yon sign With dying hand above his head He shook the fragment of his blade, And shouted "Victory! Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion. LOVE OF COUNTRY. Breathes there a man with soul so dead, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As nome his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. THOMAS MOORE. (1780—still living.) YOUTH AND AGE. I SAW from the beach, when the morning was shining, I came, when the sun o'er that beach was declining — Ah! such is the fate of our life's early promise, So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known; Each wave that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us, And leaves us, at eve, on the black shore alone. Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning The close of our day, the calm eve of our night; Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning, When passion first waked a new life through his frame, And his soul like the wood that grows precious in burning → Gave out all its sweets to Love's exquisite flame! REMINISCENCES. Sweet Moon! if, like Crotona's sage, By any spell my hand could dare To make thy disk its ample page, And write my thoughts, my wishes tnere; How many a friend whose careless eye From the land side it comes, and loud Rings through the chasm; as if the crowd "They come― the Moslems come!" he cries, Are on the wing to join your choir!" To their young loves, reclimbed the steep Together at that cry accurst, Had from their sheaths, like sunbeams, burst. And hark!-again—again it rings; Peal through the chasm-oh! who that then Without one victim to our shades, One Moslem heart where, buried deep, Live in the awe-struck minds of men, Who sinks entombed on Moslem dead!" - Still through the dark defiles below, Tracked by his torches' lurid fire, Wound slow, as through Golconda's vale |