I pledge her not in any cheerful cup,

Nor care to sit beside her where she sits

Ah pity — hint it not in human tones, But breathe it into earth and close it up With secret death forever, in the pits

Which some green Christmas crams with weary bones

SONG.

LADY, let the rolling drums
Beat to battle where thy warrior stands:
Now thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands.

Lady, let the trumpets blow,
Clasp thy little babes about thy knee:
Now their warrior father meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

SONG.

HOME they brought him slain with spears.
They brought him home at even-fall:

All alone she sits and hears

Echoes in his empty hall,

Sounding on the morrow.

The Sun peep'd in from open field,
The boy began to leap and prance,
Rode upon his father's lance,

Beat upon his father's shield

"O hush, my joy, my sorrow."

ON A MOURNER.

NATURE, so far as in her lies,

Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,

Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place ;

2.

Fills out the homely quickset-screens,
And makes the purple lilac ripe,
Steps from her airy hill, and greens

The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe,
With moss and braided marish-pipe;

3.

And on thy heart a finger lays,
Saying, "Beat quicker, for the time
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime
Put forth and feel a gladder clime."

4.

And murmurs of a deeper voice,

Going before to some far shrine,
Teach that sick heart the stronger choice,
Till all thy life one way incline
With one wide will that closes thine.

5.

And when the zoning eve has died

Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn,
Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride,
From out the borders of the morn,
With that fair child betwixt them born.

6.

And when no mortal motion jars

The blackness round the tombing sod,

Thro' silence and the trembling stars

Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod

And Virtue, like a household god

7.

Promising empire; such as those

That once at dead of night did greet

Troy's wandering prince, so that he rose
With sacrifice, while all the fleet

Had rest by stony hills of Crete.