YE Mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
For the deck it was their field of fame, And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak,
She quells the floods below,
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean-warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more
And the storm has ceased to blow.
ON Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle-blade,
And furious every charger neighed,
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rushed the steed to battle driven,
And louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser rolling rapidly..
'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun,
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few shall part where many meet
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
O HEARD ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale,
Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail?
"Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear;
And her sire, and the people, are called to her bier.
Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud;
Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned not aloud:
Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around:
They marched all in silence-They looked on the ground.
In silence they reached over mountain and moor,
To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar:
"Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn:
Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern.
“And tell me, I charge you! ye clan of my spouse,
Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?"
So spake the rude chieftain :—no answer is made,
But each mantle unfolding a dagger displayed.
"I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her shroud,” Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud; "And empty that shroud, and that coffin did seem: Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"
O! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, I ween,
When the shroud was unclosed, and no lady was seen
When a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn,
'Twas the youth who had loved the fair Ellen of Lorn:
"I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her grief,
I dreamed that her lord was a barbarous chief:
On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem;
Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!"
In dust, low the traitor has knelt to the ground,
And the desert revealed where his lady was found;
From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne→
Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn!
THERE came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill':
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion,
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once in the fire of his youthful emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh!
Sad is my fate! said the heart-broken stranger;
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again, in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with the wild-woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!
Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore;
|