CCXVIII THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AT CORUNNA OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note, N° As his corpse to the rampart we hurried; We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; Few and short were the prayers we said We thought as we hollow'd his narrow bed That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, gone Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring: And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stoneBut we left him alone with his glory. C. Wolfe CCXIX SIMON LEE, THE OLD HUNTSMAN N the sweet shire of Cardigan, An old man dwells, a little man, No man like him the horn could sound, When Echo bandied round and round The halloo of Simon Lee. In those proud days he little cared For husbandry or tillage; To blither tasks did Simon rouse The sleepers of the village. He all the country could outrun, And often, ere the chase was done, And still there's something in the world For when the chiming hounds are out, But O the heavy change!-bereft Of health, strength, friends and kindred, see Old Simon to the world is left In liveried poverty: His master's dead, and no one now Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; He is the sole survivor. And he is lean and he is sick, Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; His legs are thin and dry. He has no son, he has no child; His wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Upon the village common. Beside their moss-grown hut of clay, This scrap of land he from the heath Oft, working by her husband's side, And, though you with your utmost skill 'Tis little, very little, all That they can do between them. Few months of life has he in store As he to you will tell, For still, the more he works, the more My gentle reader, I perceive O reader! had you in your mind A tale in everything. What more I have to say is short, And you must kindly take it : One summer-day I chanced to see The mattock totter'd in his hand; So vain was his endeavour That at the root of the old tree He might have work'd for ever. 'You 're overtask'd, good Simon Lee, I struck, and with a single blow At which the poor old man so long The tears into his eyes were brought, - I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning; Alas! the gratitude of men Has oftener left me mourning. W. Wordsworth CCXX THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES HAVE had playmates, I have had companions I days; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. |