"Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, Of earth and folly born!" Solemnly sang the village choir On that sweet Sabbath morn. Through the closed blinds the golden sun Poured in a dusty beam, Like the celestial ladder seen And ever and anon, the wind, Sweet-scented with the hay, Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering leaves That on the window lay. Long was the good man's sermon, Yet it seemed not so to me; For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, And still I thought of thee. Long was the prayer he uttered, Yet it seemed not so to me ; For in my heart I prayed with him, But now, alas! the place seems changed; Thou art no longer here : Part of the sunshine of the scene With thee did disappear. Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, Like pine-trees dark and high, Subdue the light of noon, and breathe A low and ceaseless sigh; This memory brightens o'er the past, Shines on a distant field. THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys! What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies! I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song, And loud, amid the universal clamor, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. I hear the Florentine, who from his palace Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin; The tumult of each sacked and burning village ; The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns ; The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage; The wail of famine in beleaguered towns ; The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade ; And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, The diapason of the cannonade. Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts: The warrior's name would be a name abhorred ! And every nation, that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain ! E |