"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, On that sweet Sabbath morn. Through the closed blinds the golden sun Poured in a dusty beam, Like the celestial ladder seen And ever and anon, the wind, Sweet-scented with the hay, Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves That on the window lay. Long was the good man's sermon, Yet it seemed not so to me; For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, And still I thought of thee. Long was the prayer he uttere Yet it seemed not so to me For in my heart I prayed with And still I thought of thee. But now, alas! the place seems Thou art no longer here : Part of the sunshine of the scen With thee did disappear. Though thoughts, deep-rooted in Like pine-trees dark and high, Subdue the light of noon, and br A low and ceaseless sigh; This memory brightens o'er the p As when the sun, concealed Behind some cloud that near us ha Shines on a distant field. im, changed; THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. y heart, he THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, Will mingle with their awful symphonies! I hear even now the infinite fierce cho The cries of agony, the endless gro Which, through the ages that have gone In long reverberations reach our own On helm and harness rings the Saxon h Through Cimbric forest roars the N song, And loud, amid the universal clamor, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar I hear the Florentine, who from his pala Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadf And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serper The tumult of each sacked and burning v The shout that every prayer for mercy The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage The wail of famine in beleaguered town The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade ; And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts: The warrior's name would be a name abhorred ! And every nation, that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain! |