Derived through pain well suffered, to the height Of rank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved,
Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind,
Not the brute fury of barbarians blind,
But worse-ingratitude and poisonous darts, Launched by the country he had served and loved; This, with a free, unclouded spirit pure,
This in the strength of silence to endure,
A dignity to noble deeds imparts,
Beyond the gauds and trappings of renown;
This is the hero's complement and crown;
This missed, one struggle had been wanting still--
One glorious triumph of the heroic will,
One self-approval in his heart of hearts.
95. THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.
THE breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They the true-hearted came,
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame.
Not as the flying come,
In silence, and in fear;
They shook the depth of the desert's gloom,
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free.
The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared;
This was their welcome home.
There were men with hoary hair,
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land!
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow, serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found
Freedom to worship God!
96. DRONES.
THOSE gilded flies
That, basking in the sunshine of a court,
Fatten on its corruption, what are they?
The drones of the community. They feed
On the mechanic's labor; the starved hind
For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield
Its unshared harvests; and yon squallid form,
Leaner than fleshless misery that wastes
A sunless life in the unwholesome mine,
Drags out in labor a protracted death,
To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil,
That few may know the cares and woes of sloth.
Whence think'st thou kings and parasites arose ?
Whence that unnatural hive of drones, who heap
Toil and unvanquishable penury
On those who build their palaces and bring
Their daily bread? From vice, black, loathsome vice;
From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;
From all that genders misery, and makes
Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust,
Revenge, and murder.
And when reason's voice,
Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked
The nations, and mankind perceive that vice
Is discord, war, and misery-that virtue
Is peace, and happiness, and harmony-
When man's maturer nature shall disdain
The playthings of its childhood-kingly glare
Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority
Will silently pass away; the gorgeous throne
Shall stand unnoticed in their regal hall,
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable
As that of truth is now.
(These parts can be spoken together, or separately.)
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart—
Go forth unto the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with king!
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty; and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadow green; and poured rou all,
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.
98. THE SAME.-PART SECOND.
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce;
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings; yet-the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou fall
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom! yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant, in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off—
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those, who, in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.
WHEN spring, to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again,
The murdered traveller's bones were found,
Far down a narrow glen.
The fragrant birch, above him, hung
Her tassels in the sky;
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.
The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o'erhead;
|