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66

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

ENGLAND'S DEAD.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

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.

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Charles Wolfe.

ENGLAND'S DEAD.

SON of the ocean isle!
Where sleep your mighty dead?
Show me what high and stately pile
Is rear'd o'er Glory's bed.

Go, stranger! track the deep,
Free, free, the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England's dead.

On Egypt's burning plains,
By the pyramid o'ersway'd,

With fearful power the noon-day reigns,
And the palm-trees yield no shade.

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ENGLAND'S DEAD.

But let the angry sun

From Heaven look fiercely red,
Unfelt by those whose task is done!
There slumber England's dead.

The hurricane hath might
Along the Indian shore,
And far, by Ganges' banks at night,
Is heard the tiger's roar.

But let the sound roll on!

It hath no tone of dread,

For those that from their toils are gone;-
There slumber England's dead!

Loud rush the torrent-floods
The western wilds among,

And free, in green Columbia's woods,
The hunter's bow is strung.

But let the floods rush on!
Let the arrow's flight be sped!
Why should they reck whose task is done?
There slumber England's dead!

The mountain-storms rise high

In the snowy Pyrenees,

And toss the pine-boughs through the sky,
Like rose-leaves on the breeze.

But let the storm rage on!

Let the forest-wreaths be shed;
For the Roncesvalles' field is won,-
There slumber England's dead.

ENGLAND'S DEAD.

On the frozen deep's repose
'Tis a dark and dreadful hour,
When round the ship the ice-fields close,
To chain her with their power.

But let the ice drift on!

Let the cold-blue desert spread! Their course with mast and flag is done, There slumber England's dead.

The warlike of the isles,

The men of field and wave!
Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shores their grave?

Go, stranger! track the deep,
Free, free the white sail spread!

Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England's dead.

Mrs. Hemans.

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