Additional Poems (1837-1848) | Page 2

peak,
The cross of England
fell
"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn,
A heavenly torch is thine;

While feebler races melt away,
And paler orbs decline,
Still shall
the fiery pillar's ray
Along thy pathway shine,
To light the chosen
tribe that sought
This Western Palestine
"I see the living tide roll on;
It crowns with flaming towers
The icy
capes of Labrador,
The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'!
It streams
beyond the splintered ridge
That parts the northern showers;
From

eastern rock to sunset wave
The Continent is ours!"
He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint,
Then softly bent to cheer
The
Pilgrim-child, whose wasting face
Was meekly turned to hear;
And
drew his toil-worn sleeve across
To brush the manly tear
From
cheeks that never changed in woe,
And never blanched in fear.
The weary Pilgrim slumbers,
His resting-place unknown;
His hands
were crossed, his lips were closed,
The dust was o'er him strown;

The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf,
Along the sod were blown;

His mound has melted into earth,
His memory lives alone.
So let it live unfading,
The memory of the dead,
Long as the pale
anemone
Springs where their tears were shed,
Or, raining in the
summer's wind
In flakes of burning red,
The wild rose sprinkles
with its leaves
The turf where once they bled!
Yea, when the frowning bulwarks
That guard this holy strand
Have
sunk beneath the trampling surge
In beds of sparkling sand,
While
in the waste of ocean
One hoary rock shall stand,
Be this its latest
legend,--
HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND!
THE STEAMBOAT
SEE how yon flaming herald treads
The ridged and rolling waves,

As, crashing o'er their crested heads,
She bows her surly slaves!

With foam before and fire behind,
She rends the clinging sea,
That
flies before the roaring wind,
Beneath her hissing lee.
The morning spray, like sea-born flowers,
With heaped and glistening
bells,
Falls round her fast, in ringing showers,
With every wave that
swells;

And, burning o'er the midnight deep,
In lurid fringes thrown,

The living gems of ocean sweep
Along her flashing zone.
With clashing wheel and lifting keel,
And smoking torch on high,


When winds are loud and billows reel,
She thunders foaming by;

When seas are silent and serene,
With even beam she glides,
The
sunshine glimmering through the green
That skirts her gleaming
sides.
Now, like a wild, nymph, far apart
She veils her shadowy form,
The
beating of her restless heart
Still sounding through the storm;
Now
answers, like a courtly dame,
The reddening surges o'er,
With
flying scarf of spangled flame,
The Pharos of the shore.
To-night yon pilot shall not sleep,
Who trims his narrowed sail;

To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep
Her broad breast to the gale;

And many a foresail, scooped and strained,
Shall break from yard and
stay,
Before this smoky wreath has stained
The rising mist of day.
Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud,
I see yon quivering mast;

The black throat of the hunted cloud
Is panting forth the blast!
An
hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff,
The giant surge shall fling

His tresses o'er yon pennon staff,
White as the sea-bird's wing
Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep;
Nor wind nor wave shall tire

Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap
With floods of living fire;

Sleep on, and, when the morning light
Streams o'er the shining bay,

Oh think of those for whom the night
Shall never wake in day
LEXINGTON
SLOWLY the mist o'er the meadow was creeping,
Bright on the
dewy buds glistened the sun,
When from his couch, while his
children were sleeping,
Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun.

Waving her golden veil
Over the silent dale,
Blithe looked the
morning on cottage and spire;
Hushed was his parting sigh,
While
from his noble eye

Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire.
On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing
Calmly the

first-born of glory have met;
Hark! the death-volley around them is
ringing!
Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet
Faint is
the feeble breath,
Murmuring low in death,
"Tell to our sons how
their fathers have died;"
Nerveless the iron hand,
Raised for its
native land,
Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side.
Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling,
From their far hamlets the
yeomanry come;
As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst
rolling,
Circles the beat of the mustering drum.
Fast on the soldier's
path
Darken the waves of wrath,--
Long have they gathered and
loud shall they fall;
Red glares the musket's flash,
Sharp rings the
rifle's crash,
Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall.
Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing,
Never to shadow his
cold brow again;
Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing,

Reeking and panting he droops on the rein;
Pale is the lip of scorn,

Voiceless the trumpet horn,
Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on
high;
Many a belted breast
Low on the turf shall rest
Ere the dark
hunters the herd have passed by.
Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving,
Rocks where the
weary floods murmur and wail,
Wilds where the fern by the furrow is
waving,
Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale;
Far as the
tempest thrills
Over the darkened hills,
Far as the sunshine streams
over the plain,
Roused by the tyrant band,
Woke all the mighty land,

Girded for battle, from mountain to main.
Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying!
Shroudless and
tombless they sunk to their rest,
While o'er their ashes the starry