O, BREATHE no more that simple air,— Though soft and sweet thy wild notes swell, To me the only tale they tell
Is cold despair !—
I heard it once from lips as fair,
I heard it in as sweet a tone,-
Now I am left on earth alone,
How have those well-known sounds renewed
The dreams of earlier, happier hours,
When life-a desert now-was strewed
With fairy flowers !—
Then all was bright, and fond, and fair,-
Now flowers are faded, joys are fled,
And heart and hope are with the dead,
For she is where ?
Can I then love the air she loved?
Can I then hear the melting strain
Which brings her to my soul again,
Calm and unmoved?-
And thou to blame my tears forbear;
For while I list, sweet maid! to thee,
Remembrance whispers, "such was she,"
And she is where ?
"TWAS on a sultry summer noon,
The sky was blue, the breeze was still,
And Nature with the robes of June
Had clothed the slopes of Flodden Hill,As rode we slowly o'er the plain,
'Mid wayside flowers and sprouting grain; The leaves on every bough seemed sleeping, And wild bees murmured in their mirth, So pleasantly, it seemed as earth
A jubilee was keeping !
And canst thou be, unto my soul
I said, that dread Northumbrian field,
Where war's terrific thunder roll
Above two banded kingdoms pealed?
From out the forest of his spears
Ardent imagination hears
The crash of Surrey's onward charging;
While curtel-axe and broad-sword gleam
Opposed, a bright, wide, coming stream,
Like Solway's tide enlarging.
Hark to the turmoil and the shout,
The war-cry, and the cannon's boom!
Behold the struggle and the rout,
The broken lance and draggled plume! Borne to the earth, with deadly force, Comes down the horseman and his horse; Round boils the battle like an ocean,
While stripling blithe and veteran stern Pour forth their life-blood on the fern, Amid its fierce commotion !
Mown down like swathes of summer flowers,
Yes! on the cold earth there they lie,
The lords of Scotland's bannered towers,
The chosen of her chivalry!
Commingled with the vulgar dead,
Perhaps lies many a mitred head;
And thou, the vanguard onwards leading,
Who left the sceptre for the sword,
For battle-field the festal board,
Liest low amid the bleeding!
Yes! here thy life-star knew decline,
Though hope, that strove to be deceived, Shaped thy lone course to Palestine,
And what it wished full oft believed:-
An unhewn pillar on the plain
Marks out the spot where thou wast slain;
There pondering as I stood, and gazing
On its gray top, the linnet sang,
And o'er the slopes where conflict rang,
The quiet sheep were grazing.
And were the nameless dead unsung,
The patriot and the peasant train,
Who like a phalanx round thee clung,
To find but death on Flodden Plain?
No! many a mother's melting lay
Mourned o'er the bright flowers wede away;
And many a maid, with tears of sorrow,
Whose locks no more were seen to wave,
Wept for the beauteous and the brave,
Who came not on the morrow!
OH! how could fancy grown with thee
In ancient days, the god of wine,
And bid thee at the banquet be
Companion of the vine?
Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound
Of revelry hath long been o'er;
Where song's full notes once pealed around,
But now are heard no more!
The Roman, on his battle-plains
Where kings before his eagles bent,
Entwined thee with exulting strains,
Around the victor's tent;
Yet, there, though fresh in glossy green,
Triumphally thy boughs might wave,
Better thou lovest the silent scene,
Around the Victor's grave.
Where sleep the sons of ages flown,
The bards and heroes of the past;-
Where through the halls of glory gone
Murmurs the wintry blast;
Where years are hastening to efface
Each record of the grand and fair ;-
Thou, in thy solitary grace,
Wreath of the tomb! art there.
Thou o'er the shrines of fallen gods,
On classic plains dost mantling spread, And veil the desolate abodes
And cities of the dead;
Deserted palaces of kings,—
Arches of triumph, long o'erthrown,—
And all once-glorious earthly things,
At length are thine alone.
Oh! many a temple, once sublime
Beneath a blue, Italian sky,
Hath nought of beauty left by time,
Save thy wild tapestry!
And reared midst crags and clouds 'tis thine
To wave where banners waved of yore,
O'er mouldering towers by lovely Rhine
Cresting the rocky shore.
High from the fields of air, look down,
Those eyries of a vanished race,
Homes of the mighty, whose renown
Hath passed, and left no trace;
But thou art there!-thy foliage bright,
Unchanged, the mountain storm can brave,-
Thou that wilt climb the loftiest height,
And deck the humblest grave.
The breathing forms of Parian stone,
That rise round grandeur's marble halls,
The vivid hues by painting thrown,
Rich o'er the glowing walls,-
The Acanthus on Corinthian fanes,
In sculptured beauty waving fair;—
These, perish all-and what remains?
Thou-thou alone art there!
"Tis still the same-where'er we tread, The wrecks of human power we see; The marvels of all ages fled,
Left to decay and thee!
And still let man his fabrics rear,
Days pass, thou Ivy never sere,
And all is thine at length.
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