'T was in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave

The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their fathers' gore

His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would pour

Their lives for glory too.

Full many a norther's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain,

And long the pitying sky has wept

Above its mouldered slain.

The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height

That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,

56

Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the heedless air.

Your own proud land's heroic soil

Shall be your fitter grave:

She claims from war his richest spoil

The ashes of her brave.

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,

Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast

On many a bloody shield;

72

1847.

The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes' sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;

No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,

Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,

When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;

Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,

Nor Time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of glory's light

That gilds your deathless tomb.

96

Theodore O'Hara.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AFTER CORUNNA

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

4

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light
And the lanthorn dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow; But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
And smooth'd down his lonely pillow.
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er
his head,

And we far away on the billow!

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12

16

20

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him.-
But little he 'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 24

But half of our heavy task was done

When the clock struck the hour for retiring: And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

28

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory.

32

1817.

Charles Wolfe.

CORONACH

From The Lady of the Lake

HE is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The fount, reappearing,

From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing

Waft the leaves that are serest,
But our flower was in flushing,
When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber,

Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!

16

1810.

1746.

Like the dew on the mountain,

Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,

Thou art gone; and for ever!

Sir Walter Scott.

ODE WRITTEN IN 1745

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

William Collins.

MAGNOLIA CEMETERY

Sung at Charleston, S. C., over the
graves of the Confed-
erate Soldiers

SLEEP Sweetly in your humble graves,
Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause!
Though yet no marble column craves
The pilgrim here to pause.

24

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12