Rang out again and sharply: "Shoot him down!"
The priest changed color, tho with stedfast look
Set upwards, and indomitably stern.
Came the words. What frenzy,
What maddening thirst for blood, sent from our ranks
Another shot, I know not; but 'twas done.
The monk, with one hand on the altar's ledge,
Held himself up; and strenuous to complete
His benediction, in the other raised
The consecrated Host. For the third time
Tracing in the air the symbol of forgiveness,
With eyes closed, and intones exceeding low,
But in the general hush distinctly heard,
Et Sanctus Spiritus!
His service, fell down dead.
Rolled bounding on the floor, and there we stood,
Even old troopers with our muskets grounded,
And choking horror in our hearts, at sight
Of such a martyr passed away to light.
How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene.
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
Above the sleeping world. You gentle hills
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow;
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless, that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it
A metaphor of peace; all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still! The orb of day,
In southern climes, o'er ocean's waveless field
Sinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breath
Steals o'er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eve
Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day;
And vesper's image on the western main
Is beautifully still. To-morrow comes:
Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass,
Roll o'er the blackened waters; the deep roar
Of distant thunder mutters awfully;
Tempest unfolds its pinions o'er the gloom
That shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend,
With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey;
The torn deep yawns-the vessel finds a grave
Beneath its jagged gulf.
That fires the arch of heaven?-that dark red smoke
Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched
In darkness, and the pure and spangling snow
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!
Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals
In countless echoes through the mountains ring,
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!
Now swells the intermingling din; the jar,
Frequent and frightful, of the bursting bomb;
The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,
The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men
Inebriate with rage!-Loud and more loud
The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws
His cold and bloody shroud. Of all the men
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there,
In proud and vigorous health-of all the hearts
That beat with anxious life at sunset there-
How few survive, how few are beating now!
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause;
Save when the frantic wail of widowed love
Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay
Wrapt round its struggling powers.
The gray morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away,
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood,
Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms,
And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments
Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path Of the outsallying victors; far behind
Black ashes note where their proud city stood.
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen
Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.
"I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair that, all the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.
"Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words:
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.
"Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,
The idol of past years!
"Of her bright face one glance will trace A picture on the brain
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears.
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's but hers.
"I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon
Her health! and would on earth there stood
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.
"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX"
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I gallop'd, Dirck gallop'd, we gallop'd all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
Speed!" echo'd the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we gallop'd abreast.
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turn'd in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shorten'd each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chain'd slacker the bit,
Nor gallop'd less steadily Roland a whit.
'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawn'd clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld 'twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"
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