網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

Then three of his warriors, the "mighty three,"
The boast of the monarch's chivalry,

Uprose in their strength, and their bucklers rang,
As with eyes of flame on their steeds they sprang.

On their steeds they sprang, and with spurs of speed
Rushed forth in the strength of a noble deed,

And dashed on the foe like the torrent flood,

Till he floated away in a tide of blood.

To the right to the left-where their blue swords shine
Like autumn corn falls the Philistine;

And sweeping along with the vengeance of fate,
The "mighty" rush onward to Bethlehem gate.

Through a bloody gap in his shattered array,
To Bethlehem's well they have hewn their way;
Then backward they turn on the corse-covered plain,
And charge through the foe to their monarch again.

The king looks at the cup, but the crystal draught
At a price too high for his want hath been bought;
They urge him to drink, but he wets not his lip;
Though great is his need, he refuses to sip.

But he pours it forth to Heaven's Majesty,
He
pours it forth to the Lord of the sky;

'Tis a draught of death-'tis a cup blood-stained ·
"Tis a prize from man's suffering and agony gained.

Should he taste of a cup that his "mighty three"
Had obtained by their peril and jeopardy?

Should he drink of their life?'Twas the thought of a

king;

And again he returned to his suffering.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

OUR bugles sang truce; for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky,
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice, ere the morning, I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle field's dreadful

array, Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track; "Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way

To the home of my fathers that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;

I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part.
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.

"Stay, stay with us rest; thou art weary and worn;"

[ocr errors]

And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay:

But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

XLII. THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

COWPER.

[Few events have ever fallen with more startling sorrow upon the public mind of Great Britain than the loss of the Royal George, in the month of August, 1782, while lying at anchor off Spithead, near Portsmouth. She carried one hundred and ten guns, was commanded by Admiral Kempenfelt, and was deemed the finest ship in the British navy. Being just ready to go to sea, she was inclined a little on one side, either to stop a leak or for some similar object. But so little risk was anticipated from the operation, that the admiral, with his officers and men, nearly a thousand souls in all, remained on board. Besides these, the ship was crowded with persons from the shore; among whom were some three hundred women and children. In this state of things, the vessel was struck by a sudden flaw of wind, and being probably too much inclined, she was thrown farther over: the water rushed into her portholes; she filled instantly, and sunk. About three hundred persons were saved, but not less than a thousand perished. The effect of so fearful a tragedy may be more fully apprehended when we bear in mind that the whole British loss in the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought a few years after, -in its consequences the most important naval battle of modern times, was less than seventeen hundred.]

TOLL for the brave,

The brave that are no more;
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore.

Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,

Had made the vessel heel,

And laid her on her side.

A land breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset:
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.

Toll for the brave;

Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea fight is fought;

His work of glory done

[blocks in formation]

[THIS extract is from The Crescent and the Cross, a very well written and agreeable book of travels in the East, published in 1844, by ELIOT WARBURTON, an English gentleman. Mr. Warburton also wrote Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, and Reginald Hastings, a romance. This amiable and accomplished man was lost at sea in 1852, on a voyage from England to the West Indies.]

WE had been sleeping under our horses, and they had never stirred a limb for fear of hurting us. The evening before, our

path had lain among bosomy hills and quiet-looking, drab-colored valleys. This scenery, if not attractive, was at least not offensive; and when daylight came, and we found where we had wandered, the change was great indeed. It seemed as if some great battle of the elements had taken place during the night, the rocks been rent asunder in the struggle, and Nature frightfully wounded in the fray. Wildly distorted as the scenery seemed when the sun shone over it, there was a fearful silence and want of stir that enhanced its effect. Cliffs nodded over us, as if they had been awake all night, and could stand it no longer; precipices and dark ravines yawned beneath us, fixed, as it were, in some spasm of the nightmare. Not a living thing was to be seen around no drop of water, no leaf of tree, nothing but a calm, terrible sunshine above, and blackened rocks and burned soil below.

We emerged from these savage gorges into a wide, disheartening plain, bounded by an amphitheatre of dreary mountains. Our horses had had no water for twenty-four hours, and we no refreshment of any kind for twenty. Find ing there was still a gallop in my steed's elastic limbs, I pushed on for Damascus, leaving my people to follow more slowly. After a couple of hours' hard riding, I came to another range of mountains, from beyond which opened the view of Damascus, that the Prophet abstained from as too delightful for this probationary world. It is said that after many days of toil some travel, beholding the city thus lying at his feet, he exclaimed, "Only one paradise is allowed to man; I will not take mine in this world." And so he turned away his horse's head from Damascus, and pitched his tent in the desert.

I reined up my steed with difficulty on the side of the mountain; he had already, perhaps, heard the murmur of the distant waters, or instinct told him that Nature's life-streams flowed beneath that bright-green foliage. For miles around us lay the dead desert, whose sands appear to quiver under the shower of sunbeams: far away to the south and east it spread like a boundless ocean; but there, beneath our feet, lay

« 上一頁繼續 »