Page:Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse.pdf/36



HENCE—ye rude sounds, that wake me from my sleep, And fright away my dreams, peaceful and pure. I shudder at the cannon's deafning roar, The martial echo, and the shout of joy Where joy is not. For say—can joy be there Where honour and the blissful time of peace Are parted names? And you, ye peaceful bells, That call the meek soul to the house of prayer, Why with your hallow'd voices will ye swell This morning tumult? Oh, that ye would leave Me to my slumbers; better 'twere to dream Of weariness and woe, to scale the cliff Snow crown'd and dizzy, see the foe approach, And when you spring to motion find the limbs Stiff—and the tongue enchain'd; or dare the flood Upon some broken bridge—Ah! better far To suffer for an hour, and rise in peace, Than to muse waking on disastrous war And glory lost. To wake, alas, and think That honour once was ours, and find it not, Is but to wake to pain. To see the wounds