Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/545

Rh Sound the trumpet stern and steady!
 * Sound the trumpet strong and high!
 * Country and Liberty!
 * Freedom and Victory!
 * These words shall be our cry,—
 * Frémont and Victory!

Sound now the trumpet cheerily!
 * Nor dream of Heaven’s forsaking
 * The issue of its making,
 * That Right with Wrong must try.

The cloud that hung so drearily
 * The Northern winds are breaking;
 * The Northern Lights are shaking
 * Their fire-flags in the sky.

Sound the signal of awaking;
 * Sound the onset wild and high!
 * Country and Liberty!
 * Freedom and Victory!
 * These words shall be our cry,—
 * Frémont and Victory!

you go to Centre Harbor,
 * As haply you some time may,

Sailing up the Winnepesaukee
 * From the hills of Alton Bay,—

Into the heart of the highlands,
 * Into the north wind free,

Through the rising and vanishing islands,
 * Over the mountain sea,—

To the little hamlet lying
 * White in its mountain fold,

Asleep by the lake and dreaming
 * A dream that is never told,—

And in the Red Hill’s shadow
 * Your pilgrim home you make,

Where the chambers open to sunrise,
 * The mountains, and the lake,—

If the pleasant picture wearies,
 * As the fairest sometimes will,

And the weight of the hills lies on you
 * And the water is all too still,—

If in vain the peaks of Gunstock
 * Redden with sunrise fire,

And the sky and the purple mountains
 * And the sunset islands tire,—

If you turn from in-door thrumming
 * And the clatter of bowls without,

And the folly that goes on its travels,
 * Bearing the city about,—

And the cares you left behind you
 * Come hunting along your track,

As Blue-Cap in German fable
 * Rode on the traveller’s pack,—

Let me tell you a tender story
 * Of one who is now no more,

A tale to haunt like a spirit
 * The Winnepesaukee shore,—

Of one who was brave and gentle,
 * And strong for manly strife,

Riding with cheering and music
 * Into the tourney of life.

Faltering and failing midway
 * In the Tempter’s subtle snare,

The chains of an evil habit
 * He bowed himself to bear.

Over his fresh young manhood
 * The bestial veil was flung,—

The curse of the wine of Circe,
 * The spell her weavers sung.

Yearly did hill and lakeside
 * Their summer idyls frame;

Alone in his darkened dwelling
 * He hid his face for shame.

The music of life’s great marches
 * Sounded for him in vain;