Now for the fight-now for the cannon-peal- They shake-like broken waves their squares retire, — On, hussars! - Now give them rein and heel; Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire; Earth cries for blood- in thunder on them wheel! This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph-seal! Körner. CCXXXIV. THE MAIN TRUCK, OR A LEAP FOR life. OLD Ironsides at anchor lay In the harbor of Mahon; A dead calm rested on the bay, The waves to sleep had gone; BAN ANISHED from Rome! What's banished, but set free "Tried and convicted traitor! 99 Who says Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? this? Banished?—I thank you for 't. It breaks my chain ! I held some slack allegiance till But now my sword's my own. this hour; Smile on, my lords; But here I stand and scoff you : - here I fling Hatred and full defiance in your face. Your consul's merciful. For this all thanks. He dares not touch a hair of Catiline. Here I devote your senate! I've had wrongs, Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel. This day's the birth of sorrows! This hour's work Will breed proscriptions. Look to your hearths, my lords; For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods, Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ; G. Croly. CCXXXVI. APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is society where none intrudes, What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean - roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin his control Stops with the shore! upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise, And dashest him again to earth: - there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale or storm, Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime The image of Eternity- the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. Iard Byron CCXXXVII. BATTLE OF WATERLOO. THERE Her Beauty and her Chivalry; and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell' Did ye not hear it? No: 't was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street: On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet But, hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, - As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! Arm! it is - it is the cannon's opening roar ! Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, |