THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. 111 Toiling, rejoicing,-sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begin, Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought! THE DEAD. BY GEORGE F. TALBOT. THE mighty dead, earth's teeming brood, Say, whither are they gone? I move amidst life's busy crowd, And feel almost alone. Thou greedy earth, whose fertile rind That 'neath thy soil have sunk? Oh! cruel mother, yield us back THE DEAD. Where o'er thine orb from pole to pole, Thy fields yield verdure fair as erst Thine unchanged mountains sport a dress Thy zephyrs yet blow coolly by, As pure an azure tints thy sky, And yet not all thy aspects, Earth, Of changeless joy appear; Not all unknelled the dead have gone, There's moaning for them in the rush The waves, that roll o'er mouldering men, There's sobbing in the thunder-cloud 113 And widowed nature yearly mourns, From him, who felt the unknown pang To those, whose unchanged forms now lie How oft disease, and sword, and flood, Hushed is the Medes' invading tramp, Their spears consumed with rust, The host that swelled through Babel's gates, Have mingled with their dust. On Afric's stormy strand are thrown Nor now can boast the fearful ones, Mourn not the Greek on Marathon, The nation, rescued by their death, Sunk in less glorious graves. THE DEAD. Time, Carthage, has avenged thy wrongs, The haughty throng, that led 115 Thy captive sons through Rome's proud streets, Are numbered with thy dead. Jerusalem weeps not her slain, Nor hates her conquering foes,— The mountains saved not them who fled, Nor yet their victory those. Ranks fell on ranks on Waterloo, And Borodino's plain, And Russia's snows have crimson grown With blood of thousands slain. The peasant by his cottage fire, The savage in his wilderness, Oh! all the race of men are dead, Like flitting shadows of the past, A few still linger here. |