LESTER WALLACK
With a glimmer of plumes and a sparkle
of lances,
With blare of the trumpets
and neigh of the steed,
At morning they rode where the bright
river glances,
And the sweet summer wind
ripples over the mead;
The green sod beneath them was ermined
with daisies,
Smiling up to green boughs
tossing wild in their glee,
While a thousand glad hearts sang their
honors and praises,
While the Knights of the Mountain
rode down to the sea.
One rode ’neath the banner whose
face was the fairest,
Made royal with deeds that
his manhood had done,
And the halo of blessing fell richest
and rarest
On his armor that splintered
the shafts of the sun;
So moves o’er the waters the cygnet
sedately,
So waits the strong eagle
to mount on the wing,
Serene and puissant and simple and stately,
So shines among princes the
form of the King.
With a gay bugle-note when the daylight’s
last glimmer
Smites crimson and gold on
the snow of his crest,
At evening he rides through the shades
growing dimmer,
While the banners of sunset
stream red in the West;
His comrades of morning are scattered
and parted,
The clouds hanging low and
the winds making moan,
But smiling and dauntless and brave and
true-hearted,
All proudly he rides down
the valley alone.
Sweet gales of the woodland embrace and
caress him,
White wings of renown be his
comfort and light,
Pale dews of the starbeam encompass and
bless him,
With the peace and the balm
and the glory of night;
And, Oh! while he wends to the verge of
that ocean,
Where the years like a garland
shall fall from his brow,
May his glad heart exult in the tender
devotion,
The love that encircles and
hallows him now.
[Enthusiastic applause.]
ROBERT C. WINTHROP
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
[Speech of Robert C.
Winthrop made at the public dinner given to
Amin Bey by the merchants
of Boston, Mass., November 4, 1850.]
MR. PRESIDENT:—I am greatly honored by the sentiment just proposed, and I beg my good friend, the Vice-President [Hon. Benjamin Seaver], to accept my hearty thanks for the kind and complimentary terms in which he has presented my name to the company. I am most grateful for the opportunity of meeting with so large a number of the intelligent and enterprising merchants of Boston, and of uniting with them in a tender of deserved hospitality, and in a tribute of just respect, to the Commissioner of his Imperial Majesty, the Sultan of Turkey.