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62

THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH.

And bountiful, and cruel, and devout,

And quick to draw the sword in private feud.
He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed
The saints as fervently on bended knees

As ever shaven cenobite.

He loved

As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears

His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks

On his pursuers. He aspired to see
His native Pisa queen and arbitress
Of cities; earnestly for her he raised
His voice in council, and affronted death
In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck,
And brought the captured flag of Genoa back,
Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay
The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen.
He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke,
But would have joined the exiles, that withdrew
For ever, when the Florentine broke in
The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts
For trophies-but he died before that day.

"He lived, the impersonation of an age
That never shall return. His soul of fire
Was kindled by the breath of the rude time
He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds,
Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier,
Turning from the reproaches of the past,
And from the hopeless future, gives to ease,
And love, and music, his inglorious life."

SEVENTY-SIX.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung,
When, through the fresh awakened land,

The thrilling cry of freedom rung,
And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around,

And ocean-mart replied to mart,

And streams, whose springs were yet unfound, Pealed far away the startling sound

Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep,

From mountain river swift and cold;

The borders of the stormy deep,

The vales where gathered waters sleep,
Sent up the strong and bold.

As if the very earth again

Grew quick with God's creating breath And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men

To battle to the death.

64

SEVENTY-SIX.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day
The fair fond bride of yestereve,
And aged sire and matron gray,
Saw the loved warriors haste away,
And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun;

Already blood on Concord's plain
Along the springing grass had run,
And blood had flowed at Lexington,
Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward

Hallowed to freedom all the shore;
In fragments fell the yoke abhorred-
The footstep of a foreign lord
Profaned the soil no more.

THE LIVING LOST.

MATRON! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth have passed, And now the mould is heaped above

The dearest and the last!

Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show

The tears that scald the cheek,

Wrung from their eyelids by the shame And guilt of those they shrink to name, Whom once they loved, with cheerful will, And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,

Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve; And graceful are the tears ye shed, And honoured ye who grieve.

66

THE LIVING LOST.

The praise of those who sleep in earth,
The pleasant memory of their worth,
The hope to meet when life is past,
Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

But ye, who for the living lost
That agony in secret bear,

Who shall with soothing words accost
The strength of your despair?
Grief for your sake is scorn for them
Whom ye lament and all condemn;
And o'er the world of spirits lies
A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

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