’Twas in that hour his stern command
    Called to a martyr’s grave
  The flower of his beloved land,
    The nation’s flag to save. 
  By rivers of their fathers’ gore
    His first-born laurels grew,
  And well he deemed the sons would pour
    Their lives for glory too.

  Full many a norther’s breath has swept
    O’er Angostura’s plain,
  And long the pitying sky has wept
    Above its mouldered slain. 
  The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight,
    Or shepherd’s pensive lay,
  Alone awakes each sullen height
    That frowned o’er that dread fray.

  Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
    Ye must not slumber there,
  Where stranger steps and tongues resound
    Along the heedless air. 
  Your own proud land’s heroic soil
    Shall be your fitter grave: 
  She claims from war his richest spoil—­
    The ashes of her brave.

  Thus ’neath their parent turf they rest,
    Far from the gory field,
  Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast
    On many a bloody shield;
  The sunshine of their native sky
    Smiles sadly on them here,
  And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
    The heroes’ sepulchre.

  Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! 
    Dear as the blood ye gave;
  No impious footstep here shall tread
    The herbage of your grave;
  Nor shall your glory be forgot
    While Fame her record keeps,
  Or Honor points the hallowed spot
    Where Valor proudly sleeps.

  Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone
    In deathless song shall tell,
  When many a vanished age hath flown,
    The story how ye fell;
  Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight,
    Nor Time’s remorseless doom. 
  Shall dim one ray of glory’s light
    That gilds your deathless tomb.

THEODORE O’HARA.

* * * * *

THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.

  This is the arsenal.  From floor to ceiling,
    Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
  But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
    Startles the villages with strange alarms.

  Ah! what a sound will rise—­how wild and dreary—­
    When the death-angel touches those swift keys! 
  What loud lament and dismal miserere
    Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

  I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus—­
    The cries of agony, the endless groan,
  Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
    In long reverberations reach our own.

  On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer;
    Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song;
  And loud amid the universal clamor,
    O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

  I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
    Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din;
  And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
    Beat the wild war-drums made of serpents’ skin;