THE BELEAGUERED CITY. BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONG FELLOW. I HAVE read, in some old marvellous tale, Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, The army of the dead. White as a sea-fog, landward bound, The river flowed between. 96 THE BELEAGUERED CITY. No other voice nor sound was there, The mist-like banners clasped the air, But, when the old cathedral bell The white pavilions rose and fell Down the broad valley fast and far Up rose the glorious morning star, I have read, in the marvellous heart of man, That an army of phantoms vast and wan Encamped beside Life's rushing stream, Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam Portentous through the night. Upon its midnight battle-ground The spectral camp is seen, And, when the solemn and deep church-bell The midnight phantoms feel the spell, The shadows sweep away. Down the broad Vale of Tears afar The spectral camp is fled; Faith shineth as a morning star, Our ghastly fears are dead. SONNET-OCTOBER. BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death. K 98 FELICIA HEMANS. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away. In such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks, And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, And music of kind voices ever nigh; And when my last sand twinkled in the glass, FELICIA HEMANS. BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. NATURE doth mourn for thee. There is no need For man to strike his plaintive lyre and fail, Save one sad requiem, when its blossoms fell, As for a florist fallen. The ivy, wreathed FELICIA HEMANS. Round the gray turrets of a buried race, And the tall palm that like a prince doth rear With their dim legends blend thy hallowed name. The cloistered chambers, where the sea-gods sleep, Lament for thee, through all the sounding deeps. From the scathed pine tree, near the red man's hut, To where the everlasting banian builds Its vast columnac temple, comes a moan For thee, whose ritual made each rocky height An altar, and each cottage-home, the haunt Yea, thou didst find the link That joins mute nature to ethereal mind, The couch Of thy last sleep, was in the native clime K* 99 |