60

TO THE APENNINES.

From clouds, that rising with the thunder's sound,
Hung like an earth-born tempest o'er the ground.

Ah me! what armed nations-Asian horde,

And Lybian host-the Scythian and the Gaul,
Have swept your base and through your passes poured,
Like ocean-tides uprising at the call

Of tyrant winds-against your rocky side
The bloody billows dashed, and howled, and died.

And commonwealths against their rivals rose,

Trode out their lives and earned the curse of Cain! While in the noiseless air and light that flowed Round your far brows, eternal Peace abode.

Here pealed the impious hymn, and altar flames
Rose to false gods, a dream-begotten throng,
Jove, Bacchus, Pan, and earlier, fouler names;

While, as the unheeding ages passed along,

Ye, from your station in the middle skies, Proclaimed the essential Goodness, strong and wise.

In

you the heart that sighs for freedom seeks

Her image; there the winds no barrier know, Clouds come and rest and leave your fairy peaks; While even the immaterial Mind, below,

And Thought, her winged offspring, chained by power, Pine silently for the redeeming hour.

THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH.

THIS is the church which Pisa, great and free, Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear To shiver in the deep and voluble tones

Rolled from the organ!

Underneath my feet

There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault.

The image of an armed knight is graven

Upon it, clad in perfect panoply—

Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm,
Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield.
Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim

By feet of worshippers, are traced his name,
And birth, and death, and words of eulogy.
Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb,
This effigy, the strange disused form

Of this inscription, eloquently show

His history. Let me clothe in fitting words
The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph.
"He whose forgotten dust for centuries
Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom
Adventure, and endurance, and emprise
Exalted the mind's faculties and strung

The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight,
Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose,

62

THE KNIGHT'S EPITAPH.

And bountiful, and cruel, and devout,

And quick to draw the sword in private feud.
He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed
The saints as fervently on bended knees

As ever shaven cenobite.

He loved

As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears

His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks

On his pursuers. He aspired to see
His native Pisa queen and arbitress
Of cities; earnestly for her he raised
His voice in council, and affronted death
In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck,
And brought the captured flag of Genoa back,
Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay
The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen.
He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke,
But would have joined the exiles, that withdrew
For ever, when the Florentine broke in
The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts
For trophies-but he died before that day.

"He lived, the impersonation of an age
That never shall return. His soul of fire
Was kindled by the breath of the rude time
He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds,
Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier,
Turning from the reproaches of the past,
And from the hopeless future, gives to ease,
And love, and music, his inglorious life."

SEVENTY-SIX.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung,
When, through the fresh awakened land,

The thrilling cry of freedom rung,
And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around,

And ocean-mart replied to mart,

And streams, whose springs were yet unfound Pealed far away the startling sound

Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep,

From mountain river swift and cold;

The borders of the stormy deep,

The vales where gathered waters sleep,
Sent up the strong and bold.

As if the very earth again

Grew quick with God's creating breath And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men

To battle to the death.

64

SEVENTY-SIX.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day'
The fair fond bride of yestereve,
And aged sire and matron gray,
Saw the loved warriors haste away,

And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun;

Already blood on Concord's plain
Along the springing grass had run,
And blood had flowed at Lexington,
Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward
Hallowed to freedom all the shore;
In fragments fell the yoke abhorred-
The footstep of a foreign lord

Profaned the soil no more.