Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

What! 't is the signal! start so soon,
And through the Santee swamp so deep,
Without the aid of friendly moon,

And we, Heaven help us! half asleep!
But courage, comrades! Marion leads,
The Swamp Fox takes us out to-night;
So clear your swords and spur your steeds,
There's goodly chance, I think, of fight.

We follow where the Swamp Fox guides, We leave the swamp and cypress-tree, Our spurs are in our coursers' sides,

And ready for the strife are we. The Tory camp is now in sight,

And there he cowers within his den; He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight, He fears, and flies from Marion's men.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky; The sister stars, lamenting in their pain That one of the selectest ones must die, Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest!

Alas! 't is ever thus the destiny.

Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone. The hope most precious is the soonest lost, The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost.

Are not all short-lived things the loveliest ? And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky,

Look they not ever brightest, as they fly From the lone sphere they blest!

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

SPARKLING and bright in liquid light,
Does the wine our goblets gleam in,
With hue as red as the rosy bed
Which a bee would choose to dream in.
Then fill to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight
Of Time through Life's dominions,
We here a while would now beguile
The graybeard of his pinions,

To drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting

As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

But since Delight can't tempt the wight,
Nor fond Regret delay him,
Nor Love himself can hold the elf,
Nor sober Friendship stay him,

We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light,
To loves as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.

MONTEREY

WE were not many- we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he then could

Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,

Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them
wailed

Their dying shout at Monterey.

And on- still on our column kept Through walls of flame its withering

way;

[blocks in formation]
« ÎnapoiContinuă »