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Bathed in war's perfume--delicate flag!
(Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,)
O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman!...

"Fall in! Now, get a move on!" (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village,
Out to the flat rich country green with June....
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage,...

He was working on a station in the Western when I knew him,
And he came from Conongamo, up the old surveyors' track,
And the fellows all admitted that no man in Vic. could 'do him,'...

I

THE RETURN

He went, and he was gay to go:
And I smiled on him as he went.
My boy! 'Twas well he couldn't know
My darkest dread, or what it meant -
...

(Malvern Hill, 1864)

...

I

Veteran memories rally to muster
Here at the call of the old battle days:
Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster:
All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze:...

They are waking, they are waking,
In the east, and in the west;
They are throwing wide their windows to the sun;
And they see the dawn is breaking,
And they quiver with unrest,...

It was a summer's evening;
Old Casper's work was done,
And he before his cottage-door
Was sitting in the sun;
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
...

Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge...

The tide of fate rolls on! heart-pierced and pale,
The gallant soldier lies,[1] nor aught avail,
The shield, the sword, the spirit of the brave,
From rapine's armed hand thy vales to save,...

A View from Oxford Cloisters.
(January, 1863.)


With Tewksbury and Barnet heath
In days to come the field shall blend,
The story dim and date obscure;
In legend all shall end....

Of Nelson and the North
Sing the glorious day's renown,
When to battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark's crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
By each gun the lighted brand...

("Accourez tous, oiseaux de proie!")

[VII., September, 1825.]


Ho! hither flock, ye fowls of prey!
Ye wolves of war, make no delay!
For foemen 'neath our blades shall fall...

A quaint old gabled cottage sleeps between the raving hills.
To right and left are livid strife, but on the deep, wide sills
The purple pot-flowers swell and glow, and o'er the walls and eaves...

Clear sounds the call on high:
"To arms and victory!"
Brave hearts that win or die,
Dying, may win;
Proudly the banners wave,
What though the goal's the grave?
Death cannot harm the brave, -...

From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime--
"God save the Tsar!"

Above the ravelins and the moats...

ON THE EVER-LAMENTED LOSS OF THE TWO YEW-TREES IN THE PARISH OF CHILTHORNE, SOMERSET. 1706. IMITATED FROM THE EIGHTH BOOK OF OVID


In ancient time, as story tells,
The saints would often leave their cells,...

I.

"And where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?"
My sister asked our guest one winter's day.
Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way
Common to both: "Wherever thou shall send!...

Dead he lay among his books!
The peace of God was in his looks.

As the statues in the gloom
Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb,

So those volumes from their shelves...

Give wings unto the storm, and spurs to steed,
I'd move unchained as wind across the world,
Sweep onward like a torrent mountain-hurled,
Nor sea, nor height, nor valley pause to heed....