Poems, first period | Page 7

dear,
By our blessings lulled to
slumbers sweet!
Sleep on calmly in thy prison drear,--
Sleep on
calmly till again we meet!
Till the loud Almighty trumpet sounds,

Echoing through these corpse-encumbered hills,
Till God's
storm-wind, bursting through the bounds
Placed by death, with life
those corpses fills--
Till, impregnate with Jehovah's blast,
Graves
bring forth, and at His menace dread,
In the smoke of planets melting
fast,
Once again the tombs give up their dead!
Not in worlds, as dreamed of by the wise,
Not in heavens, as sung in
poet's song,
Not in e'en the people's paradise--
Yet we shall o'ertake
thee, and ere long.
Is that true which cheered the pilgrim's gloom?

Is it true that thoughts can yonder be
True, that virtue guides us o'er
the tomb?
That 'tis more than empty phantasy?
All these riddles are
to thee unveiled!
Truth thy soul ecstatic now drinks up,
Truth in
radiance thousandfold exhaled

From the mighty Father's blissful cup.
Dark and silent bearers draw, then, nigh!
To the slayer serve the feast
the while!
Cease, ye mourners, cease your wailing cry!
Dust on dust
upon the body pile!
Where's the man who God to tempt presumes?


Where the eye that through the gulf can see?
Holy, holy, holy art thou,
God of tombs!
We, with awful trembling, worship Thee!
Dust may
back to native dust be ground,
From its crumbling house the spirit fly,

And the storm its ashes strew around,--
But its love, its love shall
never die!
THE BATTLE.
Heavy and solemn,
A cloudy column,
Through the green plain they marching came!
Measure less spread,
like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The
looks are bent on the shaking ground,
And the heart beats loud with a
knelling sound;
Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,

Gallops the major along the front--
"Halt!"
And fettered they stand at the stark command,
And the
warriors, silent, halt!
Proud in the blush of morning glowing,
What on the hill-top shines in
flowing,
"See you the foeman's banners waving?"
"We see the
foeman's banners waving!"
"God be with ye--children and wife!"

Hark to the music--the trump and the fife,
How they ring through the
ranks which they rouse to the strife! Thrilling they sound with their
glorious tone,
Thrilling they go through the marrow and bone!

Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er,
In the life to come that we
meet once more!
See the smoke how the lightning is cleaving asunder!
Hark the guns,
peal on peal, how they boom in their thunder! From host to host, with
kindling sound,
The shouting signal circles round,
Ay, shout it forth
to life or death--
Freer already breathes the breath!
The war is
waging, slaughter raging,
And heavy through the reeking pall,
The
iron death-dice fall!
Nearer they close--foes upon foes

"Ready!"--From square to square it goes,
Down on the knee they sank,


And fire comes sharp from the foremost rank.
Many a man to the
earth it sent,
Many a gap by the balls is rent--
O'er the corpse before
springs the hinder man,
That the line may not fail to the fearless van,

To the right, to the left, and around and around,
Death whirls in its
dance on the bloody ground.
God's sunlight is quenched in the fiery
fight,
Over the hosts falls a brooding night!
Brothers, God grant
when this life is o'er
In the life to come that we meet once more!
The dead men lie bathed in the weltering blood
And the living are
blent in the slippery flood,
And the feet, as they reeling and sliding go,

Stumble still on the corpses that sleep below.
"What, Francis!"
"Give Charlotte my last farewell."
As the dying man murmurs, the
thunders swell--
"I'll give--Oh God! are their guns so near?
Ho!
comrades!--yon volley!--look sharp to the rear!--
I'll give thy
Charlotte thy last farewell,
Sleep soft! where death thickest
descendeth in rain,
The friend thou forsakest thy side shall regain!"

Hitherward--thitherward reels the fight,
Dark and more darkly day
glooms into night--
Brothers, God grant when this life is o'er
In the
life to come that we meet once more!
Hark to the hoofs that galloping go!
The adjutant flying,--
The
horsemen press hard on the panting foe,
Their thunder booms in
dying--
Victory!
The terror has seized on the dastards all,
And their colors
fall!
Victory!
Closed is the brunt of the glorious fight
And the day, like a
conqueror, bursts on the night,
Trumpet and fife swelling choral
along,
The triumph already sweeps marching in song.
Farewell,
fallen brothers, though this life be o'er,
There's another, in which we
shall meet you once more!
ROUSSEAU.

Monument of our own age's shame,
On thy country casting endless
blame,
Rousseau's grave, how dear thou art to me
Calm repose be
to thy ashes blest!
In thy life thou vainly sought'st for rest,
But at
length 'twas here obtained by thee!
When will ancient wounds be covered o'er?
Wise men died in
heathen days of yore;
Now 'tis lighter--yet they die again.
Socrates
was killed by sophists vile,
Rousseau meets his death through
Christians' wile,--
Rousseau--who would fain make