Our bugles sang truce,—for the night-cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I...
How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love’s beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there ’s no untying!
Yet remember, midst your wooing,
Love has bliss, but love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.
Love he comes, Love he tarries,
Just as fate or...
From “The Pleasures of Hope” 1
UNFADING Hope! when life’s last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return!
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
O, then thy kingdom comes! Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph...
All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its immortality!
I saw a vision in my sleep,
That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of time!
I saw the last of human mould
That shall creation’s death behold,
As Adam saw her prime!
The sun’s eye...
Star that bringest home the bee,
And sett’st the weary laborer free!
If any star shed peace, ’t is thou,
That send’st it from above,
Appearing when heaven’s breath and brow
Are sweet as hers we love.
Come to the luxuriant skies,
Whilst the landscape’s odors rise,
Whilst far-off lowing herds are heard,
And songs...
Ye mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The...
I Love contemplating—apart
From all his homicidal glory—
The traits that soften to our heart
Napoleon’s glory!
’T was when his banners at Boulogne
Armed in our island every freeman,
His navy chanced to capture one
Poor British seaman.
They suffered him—I know not how—
Unprisoned on the shore to roam;...
A Chieftain, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, “Boatman, do not tarry!
And I ’ll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o’er the ferry.”
“Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water?”
“O, I ’m the chief of Ulva’s isle,
And this Lord Ullin’s daughter.
“And fast before her father’s men
Three days...
There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
But the day-star attracted his eye’s sad devotion,
For it rose o’er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once, in the fire of his youthful emotion,...
What ’s hallowed ground? Has earth a clod
Its Maker meant not should be trod
By man, the image of his God,
Erect and free,
Unscourged by Superstition’s rod
To bow the knee?
That ’s hallowed ground where, mourned and missed,
The lips repose our love has kissed;—
But where ’s their memory’s mansion? Is ’t...
