THE MARINER'S SONG. Yet, laugh not in your carnival of crime Too proudly, ye oppressors! Spain was free! Kings, bigots, can inflict no brand of shame, 309 CAMPBELL. XI. THE MARINER'S SONG. A WET sheet and a flowing sea, And fills the white and rustling sail, "O! for a soft and gentle wind!" But give to me the snoring breeze, There's tempest in yon hornëd moon, YE who love the haunts of Nature, love the sunshine of the meadow, love the shadow of the forest, love the wind among the branches, and the rain-shower and the snow-storm, and the rushing of great rivers through their palisades of pine-trees, and the thunder in the mountains, whose innumerable echoes flap like eagles in their eyries,* - listen to these wild traditions, to this Song of Hiawatha !† Ye who love a nation's legends, love the ballads of a people, that, like voices from afar off, call to us to pause and listen, speak in tones so plain and childlike, scarcely can the ear distinguish whether they are sung or spoken, - listen to this Indian legend, to this Song of Hiawatha ! Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, who have faith in God and Nature, who believe that in all ages every human heart is human; that, in even savage bosoms, there are longings, yearnings, strivings, for the good they comprehend not; that the feeble hands and helpless, groping blindly in the darkness, touch God's right hand in the darkness, and are lifted up and strengthened, listen to this simple story, to this Song of Hiawatha! Ye who sometimes in your rambles through the green lanes of the country, where the tangled barberry-bushes hang their tufts. of crimson berries over stone walls gray with mosses, pause by some neglected grave-yard, for a while to muse and ponder on a half-effaced inscription, writ with little skill of song-craft, homely phrases, but each letter full of hope and yet of heart-break, full of all the tender pathos of the Here and the Hereafter, - stay and read this rude inscription, read this song of Hiawatha ! * Pronounced a'riz. LONGFELLOW. XIII. - THE GRAVE. BLEST are the dormant In death! They repose + Pronounced He-a-wa'tha, the second a as in fall. THE TWO RETURNED TOURISTS 311 From the yoke of the world and the snares of the traitor! The grave, the grave is the true liberator! Griefs chase one another Around the earth's dome; Woo pleasure, ye triflers! The thoughtful are wiser; Is the good man unfriended Where storms have expended Are his labors requited by slander and rancor? The grave, the grave is his sure bower-anchor! To gaze on the faces Of lost ones anew To lock in embraces The loved and the true Were a rapture to make even Paradise brighter; grave, the grave is the great reuniter ! The Crown the corpse, then, with laurels, The conqueror's wreath! Make joyous with chorals The chamber of death; And welcome the victor with cymbal and psalter grave, the grave is the only exalter! The S. A. WAHLMANN. XIV. -THE TWO RETURNED TOURISTS - Two travelers through the gateway went And when the two came home again, 'Twas a buzz of questions on every side. "And what have you seen? — do tell!" they cried. - The one with yawning made reply: "What have we seen?- Not much have I ! 1 Trecs, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams, The other, smiling, said the same; But with face transfigured and eye of flame: 66 Trees, meadows, mountains, groves, and streams! FROM THE GERMAN, BY C. T. BROOKS. XV. RIENZI TO THE ROMAN CONSPIRATORS IN 1347 ROMANS! look round you on this sacred place There once stood shrines, and gods, and godlike men. What see you now? what solitary trace Is left of all that made Rome's glory then? The shrines are sunk, the Sacred Mount bereft Even of its name. - and nothing now remains But the deep memory of that glory, left To whet our pangs and aggravate our chains! To blast our strength, and rot us into slaves, Where only date-trees sigh, and serpents hiss! For the stork's brood, superb Per-sep'olis! THE POUNDER. By living human things-the deadliest, worst, Dragged to the shrine, with faded garlands tied. And sends his voice through ages yet to come, 313 "have vead, friend Sancho, that a certain Spanish knight, whose name was Die Perez de Vargas, having broken his sword in the heat of an engagement, pulled up by the roots a wild olive-tree, or at least tore down a massy branch, and did such wonderful execution, crushing and grinding so many Moors with it that day, that he won himself and his posterity the surname of The Pounder, or Bruiser." - Don Quixote. THE Christians have beleaguered the famous walls of Xe'res; When rages the hot battle before the gates of Xeres, It fell one day, when furiously they battled on the plain, *This word being derived from the French, the ch should have the sound of sh. Pronounced shivalry. |