Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/582

 566 WILLIAM H. LYTLE. [1850-60. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I AM dying, Egypt, dying. Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast, And the dark Plutonian shadows Gather on the evening blast ; Let thine arm, oh Queen, enfold me, Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear, Listen to the great heart secrets Thou, and thou alone, must hear. Though my scarred and veteran legions Bear their eagles high no more, And my wrecked and scattered galleys Strew dark Actium's fatal shore; Though no glittering guards surround me. Prompt to do their master's will, I must perish like a Roman, Die the great Triumvir still. Let not Caesar's servile minions Mark the lion thus laid low ; 'Twas no foeman's arm that felled him, 'Twas his own that struck the blow — His who, pillowed on thy bosom. Turned aside from glory's ray — His who, drunk wdth thy caresses, Madly threw a world away. Should the base plebeian rabble Dare assail my name at Rome, Where the noble spouse, Octavia, Weeps within her widowed home, Seek her; say the gods bear witness, Altars, augurs, circling wings, That her blood, with mine commingled. Yet shall mount the thrones of kings. And for thee, star-eyed Egyytian ! Glorious sorceress of the Nile, Light the path to Stygian horrors With the splendors of thy smile ; Give the Csesar crowns and arches, Let his brow the laurel twine, I can scorn the senate's triumphs, Triumphing in love like thine. I am dying, Egypt, dying; Hark ! the insulting foeman's cry. They are coming; quick, my falchion, Let me front them ere I die. Ah, no more amid the battle Shall my heart exulting swell, Isis and Osiris guard thee, Cleopatra, Rome, farewell ! MACDONALD'S DRUMMER.* A DRUMMER-BOY from fair Bayonne, By love of glory lured. With bold Macdonald's stern array, The pains of war endured. And now amid those dizzy heights, That girt the Splugen dread, The silent columns struggled on, And he marched at their head. Then in those regions, cold and dim. With endless winter curs'd. The Alpine storm arose, and scowled. And forth in fury burst — Burst forth on the devoted ranks. Ambition's dauntless brood, That thus with sword and lance profaned Old Winter's solitude. " Down ! down ! upon your faces fall ; Cling to the guns ! for lo, The chamois on this slippery track Would dread yon gulf below;" So sped the w^ord from front to rear. And veterans to the storm Bowed low, who ne'er in battle bowed To aught in foeman's form. But hark ! what .horror swells the gale — Beware, oh sons of France ! by Marshal Macdonald.
 * See Ileadley's account of the passage of the Splugen,