How closely he twineth, how tight he clings And he joyously twines and hugs around A rare old plant is the ivy green. Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, But the stout old ivy shall never fade For the stateliest building man can raise Creeping where no life is seen, The Polish Boy. CHARLES DICKENS. WHENCE Come those shrieks so wild and shrill, That cut, like blades of steel, the air, Causing the creeping blood to chill With the sharp cadence of despair? Again they come, as if a heart Were cleft in twain by one quick blow, And every string had voice apart To utter its peculiar woe. Whence come they? From yon temple, where An altar, raised for private prayer, Now forms the warrior's marble bed Who Warsaw's gallant armies led. The dim funereal tapers throw What hand is that, whose icy press Clings to the dead with death's own grasp, But meets no answering caress? No thrilling fingers seek its clasp. It is the hand of her whose cry Rang wildly, late, upon the air, When the dead warrior met her eye Outstretched upon the altar there. With pallid lip and stony brow The mother sprang with gesture wild, Take me, and bind these arms, these hands, With Russia's heaviest iron bands, And drag me to Siberia's wild To perish, if 't will save my child!” "Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried, "One moment!" shrieked the mother; "one! Will land or gold redeem my son? Take heritage, take name, take all, But leave him free from Russia's thrall! Take these!" and her white arms and hands She stripped of rings and diamond bands, And tore from braids of long black hair that gleamed like starlight there; The gems Her cross of blazing rubies, last, Down at the Russian's feet she cast. He stooped to seize the glittering store;— Snatched to her leaping heart the boy. Again undid the mother's clasp. But the brave child is roused at length, He stands, a giant in the strength Of his young spirit, fierce and bold. His curling lips and crimson cheeks With a full voice of proud command He turned upon the wondering band: "Ye hold me not! no! no, nor can; This hour has made the boy a man. My noble mother, on her knee, Hath done the work of years for me!" He drew aside his broidered vest, And there, like slumbering serpent's crest, "Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave! Think ye my noble father's glaive Would drink the life-blood of a slave? The pearls that on the handle flame, No! thus I rend the tyrant's chain, A moment, and the funeral light 'Up, mother, up! I'm free! I'm free! The choice was death or slavery. His freedom is forever won; And now he waits one holy kiss To bear his father home in bliss, One last embrace, one blessing,—one ! What! silent yet? Canst thou not feel -Great God, I thank thee! Mother, I ANN S. STEPHENS. Balaklava. O THE charge at Balaklava! O that rash and fatal charge! On the battle's bloody marge! Fortress huge, and blazing banks, Earth and sky seemed rent asunder Scarce six hundred men and horses Of those vast contending forces:— O that rash and fatal charge, Far away the Russian Eagles Soar o'er smoking hill and dell, And their hordes, like howling beagles, Dense and countless, round them yell! |