ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL TAYLOR.
Weep not for him! The Thracians wisely gave
Tears to the birth-couch, triumph to the grave.
Weep not for him! Go mark his high career;
It knew no shame, no folly, and no fear.
Nurtured to peril, lo! the peril came,
To lead him on, from field to field, to fame.
Weep not for him whose lustrous life has won
No field of fame he has not made his own!
In many a fainting clime, in many a war,
Still bright-browed Victory drew the hero's car,
Whether he met the dusk and prowling foe
By Oceanic's Mississippi's flow;
Or where the Southern Swamps, with steamy breath,
Smite the worn warrior with no warrior's death!
Or where, like surges on the rolling main,
Squadron on squadron sweep the prairie plain,-
Dawn-and the field the haughty foe o'erspread;
Sunset and Rio Grande's wave runs red!
Or where, from rock-ribbed safety, Monterey
Frowns death, and dares him to the unequal fray;
Till crashing walls, and slippery streets bespeak
How frail the fortress when the heart is weak;
How vainly numbers menace, rocks defy,
Men sternly knit, and firm to do or die;
Or where on thousands thousands crowding rush
(Rome knew not such a day,) his ranks to crush,
The long day paused on Buena Vista's height,
Above the cloud with flashing volleys bright,
Till angry Freedom, hovering o'er the fray,
Swooped down, and made a new Thermopyla;-
In every scene of peril and of pain,
His were the toils, his country's was the gain,
From field to field and all were nobly won
He bore with eagle flight her standard on;
New stars rose there but never star grew dim
While in his patriot grasp. Weep not for him!
His was a spirit, simple, grand, and pure;
Great to conceive, to do, and to endure;
Yet the rough warrior was in heart a child,
Rich in love's affluence, merciful and mild,
His sterner traits majestic and antique,
Rivaled the stoic Roman or the Greek;
Excelling both, he adds the Christian name,
And Christian virtues make it more than fame.
To country, youth, age, love, life all were given !
In death he lingered between him and heaven;
Thus spake the patriot in his latest sigh,
'My duty done -- I do not fear to die!”
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. Yon 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!
That fires the arch of Heaven?
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 intermingled 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!
Before the icy wind, slow rolls away,
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance
Along the spangling snow.
Even to the forest 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!
The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sat on the rocky brow,
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men and nations - all were his!
He counted them at break of day,-
And when the sun set, where were they?
And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now
The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave;
Think ye he meant them for a slave ?
'Tis something in the dearth of fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame.
Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush,- for Greece a tear!
Must we but weep o'er days more blessed?
Must we but blush? -- Our fathers bleď;
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three
To make a new Thermopyla!
What! silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no; the voices of the dead
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