Couldst thou be shaken from thy radiant place
Ev'n as a dew-drop from the myrtle spray,

Swept by the wind away?

Wert thou not peopled by some glorious race,
And was there power to smite them with decay?

Why, who shall talk of thrones, of sceptres riven?
-Bow'd be our hearts to think of what we are,
When from its height afar

A world sinks thus-and yon majestic heaven
Shines not the less for that one vanish'd star!

7

THE SLEEPER ON MARATHON.

I

LAY upon the solemn plain

And by the funeral mound,

Where those who died not there in vain,

Their place of sleep had found. "Twas silent where the free blood gush'd, When Persia came array'd— So many a voice had there been hush'd, So many a footstep stay'd.

I slumber'd on the lonely spot,
So sanctified by Death-

I slumber'd-but my rest was not

As theirs who lay beneath.

For on my dreams, that shadowy hour,

They rose the chainless dead

All arm'd they sprang, in joy, in power,

Up from their grassy bed.

I saw their spears, on that red field, Flash as in time gone by

Chas'd to the seas, without his shield I saw the Persian fly.

I woke the sudden trumpet's blast Call'd to another fight

From visions of our glorious past,

Who doth not wake in might?

TROUBADOUR SONG.

THE warrior cross'd the ocean's foam,
For the stormy fields of war-
The maid was left in a smiling home,

His voice was heard where javelin showers Pour'd on the steel-clad line;

Her step was 'midst the summer-flowers, Her seat beneath the vine.

His shield was cleft, his lance was riven,
And the red blood stain'd his crest;
While she-the gentlest wind of heaven
Might scarcely fan her breast.

Yet a thousand arrows pass'd him by,

And again he cross'd the seas;

But she had died, as roses die,

That perish with a breeze.

As roses die, when the blast is come,
For all things bright and fair-

There was death within the smiling home,
How had death found her there?