With thee were the dreams of my earliest love; Oh! blest are the lovers and friends who shall live But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give Is the pride of thus dying for thee. T. Moore CCLXII THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him ; Few and short were the prayers we said, But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow ! Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone 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 stone, But we left him alone with his glory. C. Wolfe CCLXIII SIMON LEE THE OLD HUNTSMAN In the sweet shire of Cardigan, Full five-and-thirty years he lived No man like him the horn could sound, 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, Could leave both man and horse behind; And often, ere the chase was done, He reel'd and was stone-blind. And still there's something in the world At which his heart rejoices; For when the chiming hounds are out, But oh 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; And he is lean and he is sick, One prop he has, and only one, Lives with him, near the waterfall, 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 What more I have to say is short, One summer-day I chanced to see The mattock totter'd in his hand; That at the root of the old tree I struck, and with a single blow At which the poor old man so long The tears into his eyes were brought, They never would have done. -I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deed Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning. W. Wordsworth CCLXIV THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES I have had playmates, I have had companions, I have been laughing, I have been carousing, I loved a Love once, fairest among women: I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man : Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; C. Lamb CCLXV THE JOURNEY ONWARDS As slow our ship her foamy track When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years |