Felicia Hemans

“ Yet loves, yet answers the burning thought
Of the spirit lorn and reft?
Silence is where thou art!
Silently thou must kindred meet;
No glance to cheer, and no voice to greet;
No bounding of heart to heart!
Boast not thy victory, Death!
It is but as the cloud's o'er the sunbeam's power—
It is but as the winter's o'er leaf and flower,
That slumber, the snow beneath.
It is but as a tyrant's reign
O'er the look and the voice, which he bids be still:
—But the sleepless thought and the fiery will
Are not for him to chain.
They shall soar his might above! ”

“ And he knows 'tis a chieftain's burial-hour.
Hurriedly, in fear and woe,
Through the aisle the mourners go;
With a hush'd and stealthy tread,
Bearing on the noble dead,
Sheathed in armour of the field—
Only his wan face reveal'd,
Whence the still and solemn gleam
Doth a strange sad contrast seem
To the anxious eyes of that pale band,
With torches wavering in every hand,
For they dread each moment the shout of war,
And the burst of the Moslem scymitar.
There is no plumed head o'er the bier to bend,
No brother of battle, no princely friend ”

“ Than the quivering, erewhile, of an aspen bough.
She search'd into many an unclosed eye,
That look'd without soul to the starry sky;
She bow'd down o'er many a shatter'd breast,
She lifted up helmet and cloven crest—
Not there, not there he lay!
"Lead where the most hath been dared and done,
Where the heart of the battle hath bled,—lead on!" ”