When can their glory fade?
O, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
LOVE to wander through the woodlands hoary,
In the soft gloom of an Autumnal day,
When Summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And like a dream of beauty glides away.
How through each loved, familiar path she lingers,
Serenely smiling through the golden mist,
Tinting the wild grape with her dewy fingers,
"Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst.
Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining
To light the gloom of Autumn's mouldering halls;
With hoary plumes the clematis entwining,
Where o'er the rock her withered garland falls.
Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning,
Beneath dark clouds along the horizon rolled,
"Till the slant sunbeams through their fingers raining,
Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold.
The moist winds breathe of crisped leaves and flowers,
In the damp hollows of the woodland sown;
Mingling the freshness of Autumnal showers,
With spicy airs from cedar alleys blown.
Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow,
Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded ground,
With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow,
The gentian nods, in dewy slumbers bound.
Upon those soft, fringed lids the bee sits brooding,
Like a fond lover, loth to say farewell;
Or, with shut wings, through silken folds intruding,
Creeps near her heart his drowsy tale to tell.
The little birds upon the hillside lonely
Flit noiselessly along from spray to spray,
Still, like sweet wandering thoughts that only
Show their bright wings and softly glide away.
The scentless flowers, in the warm sunlight dreaming,
Forget to breathe their fullness of delight;
And through the tranced woods soft airs are streaming,
Still as the dew-fall on the Summer night.
So, in my heart, a sweet, unwonted feeling
Stirs, like the wind in ocean's hollow shell,
Through all its secret chambers sadly stealing,
Yet finds no word its mystic charm to tell.
THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.-J. G. WHITTIER.
Day by day the Indian tiger
Louder yelled and nearer crept;
Round and round the jungle-serpent
Near and nearer circles swept.
"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-
Pray to-day!" the soldier said;
"To-morrow, death's between us.
And the wrong and shame we dread."
Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,
Till their hope became despair;
And the sobs of low bewailing
Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden.
With her ear unto the ground;
"Dinna ye hear it?-dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound."
Hushed the wounded man his groaning;
Hushed the wife her little ones;
Alone they hear the drum rollings,
And the roar of Sepoy guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood
The Highland ear was true;—
As her mother's cradle crooning
The mountain pipes she knew.
Like the march of soundless music
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing—
Of the heart than of the ear,-
She knew the droning pibroch,
She knew the Campbell's call:
"Hark! hear ye no MacGregor's,—
The grandest of them all?"
Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless
And they caught the sound at last; Faint and far, beyond the Gomtee,
Rose and fell the piper's blast!
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
Mingled woman's voice and man's;
"God be praised!--the march of Havelock!
The piping of the clans!"
Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
Stinging all the air to life;
But when the far-off dust-cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew.
Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
Breathed the air to Britons dearest,
The air of Auld Lang Syne.
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums
Rose that sweet and homelike strain;
And the tartan clove the turban,
As the Gomtee cleaves the plain.
Dear to the lowland reaper,
And plaided mountaineer--
To the cottage and the castle
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
O'er mountain, glen, and glade,
But the sweetest of all music
The Pipes at Lucknow played.
SIT in my chair by the blazing fire,
And doze away my life,
And the laughing flames leap higher and higher,
As I dream of a little wife.
On my shoulder I feel a pressure sweet,
And arms like the snow-O whiter!-
About my neck in a warm clasp meet,-
And the flames flash brighter and brighter.
And ringlets of gold pour over my face
As my head, on her bosom's pillow,
Links down in a cloud of perfumed lace,
That heaves like the foam on the billow;
And I hear her warm heart's quickening beat,
And her eyes glow bright as fire,
As my lips are covered with kisses sweet,
And the flames leap higher and higher.
A soft cheek nestles close to my own,
And the sweet smiles o'er it chase,
Light sundrops upon a calm lake thrown,
Her dimples the smiles efface;
A lute-like laugh, and her swelling breast
Heaves joyous higher and higher;
How happy my lot and how sweet my rest,
With a wife in front of the fire!
And I drink her beauty into my heart,
And the love-light in her eyes:—
With a crash the red brands fall apart,
My wife up the chimney flies.
Thus oft, in my chair by the blazing fire,
And the mocking flames leap higher and higher
At my dream of love and a wife.
THE FOUR TRAVELLERS.-FRANCES BROWN.
At my father's board so free;
And he asked them why they left their land,
And why they crossed the sea?
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