Once this soft turf, this rivulet ’s sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armed hands
Encountered in the battle-cloud.
Ah! never shall the land forget
How gushed the life-blood of her brave—
Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.
Now all is calm, and fresh,...
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;...
Silence and Solitude may hint
(Whose home is in yon piny wood)
What I, though tableted, could never tell—
The din which here befell,
And striving of the multitude.
The iron cones and spheres of death
Set round me in their rust,—
These, too, if just,
Shall speak with more than animated breath.
Thou who beholdest...
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;...
From “Paradise Lost,” Book VI.
THE ARRAY
NOW went forth the morn,
Such as in highest heaven, arrayed in gold
Empyreal; from before her vanished night,
Shot through with orient beams; when all the plain
Covered with thick embattled squadrons bright,
Chariots, and flaming arms, and fiery steeds,
Reflecting blaze on...
From the Spanish by John Ormsby
From “The Cid”
THEN cried my Cid—“In charity, as to the rescue—ho!”
With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low,
With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow,
All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe.
And he that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice...
Anonymous translation from the German
FEAR not, O little flock! the foe
Who madly seeks your overthrow,
Dread not his rage and power;
What though your courage sometimes faints?
His seeming triumph o’er God’s saints
Lasts but a little hour.
Be of good cheer; your cause belongs
To him who can avenge your wrongs,...
[April 2, 1801]
OF Nelson and the north
Sing the glorious day’s renown,
When to battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark’s crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
By each gun the lighted brand
In a bold determined hand,
And the prince of all the land
Led them on.
Like leviathans afloat...
What, was it a dream? am I all alone
In the dreary night and the drizzling rain?
Hist!—ah, it was only the river’s moan;
They have left me behind with the mangled slain.
Yes, now I remember it all too well!
We met, from the battling ranks apart;
Together our weapons flashed and fell,
And mine was sheathed in his quivering heart...
A Fragment
[May 1, 1898]
BY Cavité on the bay
’T was the Spanish squadron lay;
And the red dawn was creeping
O’er the city that lay sleeping
To the east, like a bride, in the May.
There was peace at Manila,
In the May morn at Manila,—
When ho, the Spanish admiral
Awoke to find our line
Had passed by gray...
