Some Poems

Tempered their headlong rage, their courage steeled,
And raised fair Lusitania’s fallen shield,
And gave new edge to Lusitania’s sword,
And taught her sons forgotten arms to wield -
Shivered my harp, and burst its every chord,
If it forget thy worth, victorious BERESFORD!

XV

Not on that bloody field of battle won,
Though Gaul’s proud legions rolled like mist away,
Was half his self-devoted valour shown, -
He gaged but life on that illustrious day;
But when he toiled those squadrons to array,
Who fought like Britons in the bloody game,
Sharper than Polish pike or assagay,
He braved the shafts of censure and of shame,
And, dearer far than life, he pledged a soldier’s fame.

XVI

Nor be his praise o’erpast who strove to hide
Beneath the warrior’s vest affection’s wound,
Whose wish Heaven for his country’s weal denied;
Danger and fate he sought, but glory found.
From clime to clime, where’er war’s trumpets sound,
The wanderer went; yet Caledonia! still
Thine was his thought in march and tented ground;
He dreamed ’mid Alpine cliffs of Athole’s hill,
And heard in Ebro’s roar his Lyndoch’s lovely rill.

XVII

O hero of a race renowned of old,
Whose war-cry oft has waked the battle-swell,
Since first distinguished in the onset bold,
Wild sounding when the Roman rampart fell!
By Wallace’ side it rung the Southron’s knell,
Alderne, Kilsythe, and Tibber owned its fame,
Tummell’s rude pass can of its terrors tell,
But ne’er from prouder field arose the name
Than when wild Ronda learned the conquering shout of GRÆME!

XVIII

But all too long, through seas unknown and dark,
(With Spenser’s parable I close my tale,)
By shoal and rock hath steered my venturous bark,
And landward now I drive before the gale.
And now the blue and distant shore I hail,
And nearer now I see the port expand,
And now I gladly furl my weary sail,
And, as the prow light touches on the strand,
I strike my red-cross flag and bind my skiff to land.

THE FIELD OF WATERLOO

I

Fair Brussels, thou art far behind,
Though, lingering on the morning wind,
We yet may hear the hour
Pealed over orchard and canal,
With voice prolonged and measured fall,
From proud St. Michael’s tower;
Thy wood, dark Soignies, holds us now,
Where the tall beeches’ glossy bough
For many a league around,
With birch and darksome oak between,
Spreads deep and far a pathless screen,
Of tangled forest ground.
Stems planted close by stems defy
The adventurous foot – the curious eye
For access seeks in vain;
And the brown tapestry of leaves,
Strewed on the blighted ground, receives
Nor sun, nor air, nor rain.
No opening glade dawns on our way,
No streamlet, glancing to the ray,
Our woodland path has crossed;
And the straight causeway which we tread
Prolongs a line of dull arcade,
Unvarying through the unvaried shade
Until in distance lost.

II

A brighter, livelier scene succeeds;
In groups the scattering wood recedes,
Hedge-rows, and huts, and sunny meads,
And corn-fields glance between;
The peasant, at his labour blithe,
Plies the hooked staff and shortened scythe: -
But when these ears were green,
Placed close within destruction’s scope,
Full little was that rustic’s hope
Their ripening to have seen!
And, lo, a hamlet and its fane: -
Let not the gazer with disdain
Their architecture view;