Poetry Archives

Silence of death—portentous calm,
  Those airy forms that yonder fly
Denote that your void foreruns a storm,
  That the hour of fate is nigh.
I see, I see, on the dim mist borne,
  The Spirit of battles rear his crest!
I see, I see, that ere the morn,
  His spear will forsake its hated rest,
And the widow’d wife of Larrendill will beat her naked breast.

O’er the smooth bosom of the sullen deep,
  No softly ruffling zephyrs fly;
But nature sleeps a deathless sleep,
  For the hour of battle is nigh.
Not a loose leaf waves on the dusky oak,
  But a creeping stillness reigns around;
Except when the raven, with ominous croak,
  On the ear does unwelcomely sound.
I know, I know what this silence means;
  I know what the raven saith—
Strike, oh, ye bards! the melancholy harp,
  For this is the eve of death.

Behold, how along the twilight air
  The shades of our fathers glide!
There Morven fled, with the blood-drench’d hair,
  And Colma with gray side.
No gale around its coolness flings,
  Yet sadly sigh the gloomy trees;
And hark! how the harp’s unvisited strings
  Sound sweet, as if swept by a whispering breeze!
’Tis done! the sun he has set in blood!
  He will never set more to the brave;
Let us pour to the hero the dirge of death,
  For to-morrow he hies to the grave.