Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For, while our wishes wildly roll,
We banish quiet from the soul:
'Tis thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care.
Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain-turf I lie;
While the wanton zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep;
While the shepherd charms his sheep;
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,
Now, even now, my joys run high,
Be full, ye courts; be great who will ; Search for peace with all your skill: Open wide the lofty door,
Seek her on the marble floor.
In vain you search, she is not there ;
In vain ye search the domes of care!
Grass and flowers quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain-heads,
Along with pleasure, close allied,
Ever by each other's side:
And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes bless'd!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!
HARK to the turmoil and the shout,
The war-cry, and the cannon's boom!
Behold the struggle and the rout,
The broken lance and draggled plume!
Borne to the earth, with deadly force,
Comes down the horseman and his horse;
Round boils the battle like an ocean,
While stripling blithe and veteran stern Pour forth their life-blood on the fern, Amid its fierce commotion !
Mown down like swathes of summer flowers,
Yes! on the cold earth there they lie,
The lords of Scotland's bannered towers,
The chosen of her chivalry!
Commingled with the vulgar dead,
Perhaps lies many a mitred head;
And thou, the vanguard onwards leading,
Who left the sceptre for the sword,
For battle-field the festal board,
Liest low amid the bleeding!
Yes! here thy life-star knew decline,
Though hope, that strove to be deceived,
Shaped thy lone course to Palestine,
And what it wished full oft believed:-
An unhewn pillar on the plain
Marks out the spot where thou wast slain;
There pondering as I stood, and gazing
On its gray top, the linnet sang,
And, o'er the slopes where conflict rang,
The quiet sheep were grazing.
And were the nameless dead unsung,
The patriot and the peasant train,
Who like a phalanx round thee clung,
To find but death on Flodden Plain?
No! many a mother's melting lay
Mourned o'er the bright flowers wede away;
And many a maid, with tears of sorrow,
Whose locks no more were seen to wave,
Wept for the beauteous and the brave,
Who came not on the morrow!
THE BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA.
FROM the Rio Grandé's waters to the icy lakes of Maine,
Let all exult! for we have met the enemy again-
Beneath their stern old mountains, we have met them in their pride,
And rolled from Buena Vista back the battle's bloody tide;
Where the enemy came surging, like the Mississippi's flood,
And the reaper, Death, was busy with his sickle red with blood.
Santa Anna boasted loudly, that, before two hours were past,
His lancers through Saltillo should pursue us thick and fast;
On came his solid regiments, line marching after line;
Lo, their great standards in the sun like sheets of silver shine:
With thousands upon thousands, yea, with more than four to one,
A forest of bright bayonets gleams fiercely in the sun.
Upon them with your squadrons, May!-Out leaps the flaming steel;
Before his serried column how the frightened lancers reel!
They flee amain. Now to the left, to stay their triumph there,
Or else the day is surely lost in horror and despair;
For their hosts are pouring swiftly on, like a river in the spring:
Our flank is turned, and on our left their cannon thundering.
Now, brave artillery! bold dragoons!—Steady, my men, and calm!
Through rain, cold, hail, and thunder; now nerve each gallant arm!
What though their shot falls round us here, still thicker than the hail!
We'll stand against them, as the rock stands firm against the gale.
Lo! their battery is silenced now: our iron hail still showers:
They falter, halt, retreat! Hurrah! the glorious day is ours!
Now charge again, Santa Anna! or the day is surely lost;
For back, like broken waves, along our left your hordes are tossed.
Still louder roar two batteries-his strong reserve moves on ;-
More work is there before you, men, ere the good fight is won;
Now for your wives and children stand! steady, my braves, once more!
Now for your lives, your honor, fight! as you never fought before.
Ho! Hardin breasts it bravely! McKee and Bissell there
Stand firm before the storm of balls that fills th' astonished air.
The lancers are upon them, too!-the foe swarms ten to one-
Hardin is slain-McKee and Clay the last time see the sun;
And many another gallant heart, in that last desperate fray,
Grew cold, its last thoughts turning to its loved ones far away.
Still sullenly the cannon roared-but died away at last,
And o'er the dead and dying came the evening shadows fast,
And then above the mountains rose the cold moon's silver shield,
And patiently and pityingly looked down upon the field;
And careless of his wounded, and neglectful of his dead,
Despairingly and sullen, in the night, Santa Anna fled.
THE BATTLE OF CERRO GORDO.
SCARCE the tropic dawn is glowing;
Scarce your eye can pierce the dark,
When one voice breaks through the stillness:
'Tis our gallant leader-hark!
FORWARD!--like the pealing thunder,
Thousand voices swell the sound!
While mid groans, and smoke, and fire,
Far it echoes round and round.
Every eye is glaring wildly;
Every sabre swinging high;
Every musket at the shoulder,
Ready all to do or die.
All are doing, many dying;
GOD of mercy, how they fall!
"Forward ever!" fast and fearless,
Now we reach the outer wall.
Here we halt to close together;
Here one "Anglo-Saxon yell,"
And like surging billows breaking,
Pour we on their citadel.
Then thy palisadoed ravine,
Plan del Rio, heard the cries;
Now the Bravo Santiago,"
Now the shrill "hurrahs" that rise.
Swords are dripping, bayonets bloody,
Prayers and curses blending high;
FIERCE raged the combat-the foemen pressed nigh,
When from young Beaumanoir rose the wild cry,
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