Some crimson-edged, resplendent sail,
Some girdled with a ruby veil,
And others glowing brightly pale,
In plenitude of ease:
And so smiles now this rose-wreath'd room,
Where float along in braid and plume,
With cheeks that blush with virgin bloom,
The maidens of the night.
And yonder trips a blue-eyed troop,
Serenely tender, how they droop,
As graceful as a lily group
All languid with their bloom!
And near them glides a gentle pair
That toss their grape-like clustering hair,
As if their very ringlets were
Partakers of their joy.
Upon each cheek the blood-stream warms, While tinctured with their Paphian charms, The maidens twine their ivory arms
And circle through the dance.
Like sunshine shivering on the lake,
Their feet with dizzy motion shake,
And down the dance their steps they take,
With heart-beams in their eye.
Then why amid the heaven of joy
Should dreams of dark'ning woe annoy,
Or thoughts of gloominess alloy
The elysium of the hour?
Alas! the scene will swiftly fade,
The music cease-depart the maid,
And chill-eyed day the room invade
With cold condemning cares
Some hearts will pine, and some will weep,
And many in their graves will sleep,
And every eye shall sorrow steep,
Ere we meet here again!
A thought like this will often swell
In gloom, upon each gladdening spell,
And thrill me, like the faint "farewell!"
In pleasure's wildest hour.
PASSAGE OF THE BERESINA.
"ON with the cohorts,-on! A darkening cloud
Of Cossack lances hovers o'er the heights;
And hark!-the Russian thunder on the rear
Thins the retreating ranks."
The haggard French,
Like summon'd spectres, facing toward their foes,
And goading on the lean and dying steeds
That totter 'neath their huge artillery,
Give desperate battle. Wrapt in volumed smoke
A dense and motley mass of hurried forms
Rush toward the Beresina. Soldiers mix
Undisciplined amid the feebler throng,
While from the rough ravines the rumbling cars
That bear the sick and wounded, with the spoils,
Torn rashly from red Moscow's sea of flame,
Line the steep banks. Chill'd with the endless shade
Of black pine-forests, where unslumbering winds
Make bitter music-every heart is sick
For the warm breath of its far, native vales,
Vine-clad and beautiful. Pale, meagre hands
Stretch'd forth in eager misery, implore
Quick passage o'er the flood. But there it rolls,
'Neath its ice-curtain, horrible and hoarse,
A fatal barrier 'gainst its country's foes.
The combat deepens. Lo! in one broad flash
The Russian sabre gleams, and the wild hoof
Treads out despairing life.
They throng the bridge, those fugitives of France, Reckless of all, save that last, desperate chanceRush, struggle, strive, the powerful thrust the weak, And crush the dying.
Hark! a thundering crash,
A cry of horror! Down the broken bridge
Sinks, and the wretched multitude plunge deep
'Neath the devouring tide. That piercing shriek
With which they took their farewell of the sky
Did haunt the living, as some doleful ghost
Troubleth the fever-dream. Some for a while,
With ice and death contending, sink and rise,
While some in wilder agony essay
To hold their footing on that tossing mass
Of miserable life, making their path
O'er palpitating bosoms. "Tis in vain!
The keen pang passes, and the satiate flood
Shuts silent o'er its prey.
The sever'd host
Stand gazing on each shore. The gulf-the dead
Forbid their union. One sad throng is warn'd
To Russia's dungeons, one with shivering haste
Spread o'er the wild, through toil and pain to hew
Their many roads to death. From desert plains,
From sack'd and solitary villages
Gaunt Famine springs to seize them; Winter's wrath
Unresting day or night, with blast and storm,
And one eternal magazine of frost,
Smites the astonish'd victims.
Warrest thou with France, that thus thine elements
Do fight against her sons! Yet on they press,
Stern, rigid, silent-every bosom steel'd'
By the strong might of its own misery
Against all sympathy of kindred ties.
The brother on his fainting brother treads
Friend tears from friend the garment and the bread
That last, scant morsel, which his quivering lip
Hoards in its death-pang. Round the midnight fires,
That fiercely through the startled forest blaze,
The dreaming shadows gather, madly pleased
To bask, and scorch, and perish-with their limbs
Crisp'd like the martyr's, and their heads fast seal'd
To the frost-pillow of their fearful rest.
Turn back, turn back, thou fur-clad emperor,
Thus towards the palace of the Thuilleries
Flying with breathless speed. Yon meagre forms,
Yon breathing skeletons, with tatter'd robes
And bare and bleeding feet, and matted locks,
Are these the high and haughty troops of France,
The buoyant conscripts, who from their blest homes
Went gaily at thy bidding? When the cry
Of weeping love demands her cherish'd ones,
The nursed upon the breast-the idol-gods
Of her deep worship-wilt thou coldly point
The Beresina-the drear hospital,
The frequent snow-mound on the unshelter'd march, Where the lost soldier sleeps!
O War! War! War!
Thou false baptized, who by thy vaunted name
Of glory stealest o'er the ear of man
To rive his bosom with thy thousand darts,
Disrobed of pomp and circumstance, stand forth,
And show thy written league with sin and death.
Yes, ere ambition's heart is sear'd and sold,
And desolated, bid him mark thine end
And count thy wages.
The proud victor's plume, The hero's trophied fame, the warrior's wreath Of blood-dash'd laurel-what will these avail The spirit parting from material things? One slender leaflet from the tree of peace, Borne, dove-like, o'er the waste and warring earth, Is better passport at the gate of Heaven.
ART thou a thing of mortal birth,
Whose happy home is on our earth?
Does human blood with life embue
Those wandering veins of heavenly blue,
That stray along thy forehead fair,
Lost 'mid a gleam of golden hair?
Oh! can that light and airy breath
Steal from a being doom'd to death;
Those features to the grave be sent
In sleep thus mutely eloquent;
Or, art thou, what thy form would seem,
The phantom of a blessed dream?
A human shape I feel thou art,
I feel it at my beating heart,
Those tremors both of soul and sense
Awoke by infant innocence!
Though dear the forms by fancy wove,
We love them with a transient love,
Thoughts from the living world intrude
E'en on her deepest solitude:
But, lovely child! thy magic stole
At once into my inmost soul,
With feelings as thy beauty fair,
And left no other vision there.
To me thy parents are unknown;
Glad would they be their child to own!
And well they must have loved before,
If since thy birth they loved not more.
Thou art a branch of noble stem,
And, seeing thee, I figure them.
What many a childless one would give,
If thou in their still home would'st live!
Though in thy face no family line
Might sweetly say, "This babe is mine!"
In time thou would'st become the same
As their own child,-all but the name!
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