From “King Richard III.,” Act I. Sc. 1.
NOW is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York,
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,...
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“put up the sword!” the voice of Christ once more
Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon’s roar,
O’er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped
And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped
With nameless dead; o’er cities starving slow
Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe
Down which a groaning diapason runs
From tortured brothers, husbands,... -
Old Tubal Cain was a man of might,
In the days when earth was young;
By the fierce red light of his furnace bright,
The strokes of his hammer rung:
And he lifted high his brawny hand
On the iron glowing clear,
Till the sparks rushed out in scarlet showers,
As he fashioned the sword and the spear.
And he sang: “Hurrah for... -
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O’Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?—
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch-tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone,—and the birch in... -
“To fall on the battle-field fighting for my dear country,—that would not be hard.”—The Neighbors.
O NO, no,—let me lie
Not on a field of battle when I die!
Let not the iron tread
Of the mad war-horse crush my helmèd head;
Nor let the reeking knife,
That I have drawn against a brother’s life,
Be in my hand when... -
Come hither lads and hearken,
for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming,
when all shall be better than well.And the tale shall be told of a country,
a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England
in the days that are going to be.There more than one in a thousand,
in the... -
On a lone barren isle, where the wild roaring billows
Assail the stern rock, and the loud tempests rave,
The hero lies still, while the dew-drooping willows,
Like fond weeping mourners, lean over the grave.
The lightnings may flash, and the loud thunders rattle:
He heeds not, he hears not, he ’s free from all pain;—
He sleeps his last sleep... -
[In Bavaria, August 13, 1704, between the English and Austrians on one side, under the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and the French and Bavarians on the other side, led by Marshal Tallart and the Elector of Bavaria. The latter party was defeated, and the schemes of Louis XIV. of France were materially checked.]
IT was a summer evening,—
Old Kaspar’s work was done... -
I.
england, I stand on thy imperial ground
Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow,
I feel within my blood old battles flow,—
The blood whose ancient founts are in thee found
Still surging dark against the Christian bound
While Islam presses; well its peoples know
Thy heights that watch them wandering below:
I think how... -
[Dedication of a monument to Kentucky volunteers, killed at Buena Vista, Mexico]
THE MUFFLED drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo;
No more on Life’s parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac...