Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/583

 1850-GO.] WILLIAM H. LYTLB. 567 Beware the avalanche whose home Is 'mid these mountain haunts. Yon distant thunder — 'tis its voice ! The bravest held his breath, And silently a prayer put up To die a soldier's death. And near and nearer with a roar, That loud and louder swelled, The avalanche down glaciers broad. Its lightning pathway held ; And through the shivering ranks it crashed, And then with one vast stride, Swept down the gulf, till far below Its muttering thunders died. In vain Italia's sunny plains And reeling vines invite. Full many a soldier found his shroud, 'Mid Alpine snows that night ; And he, his comrades' pride and boast, The lad from fair Bayonne ; The roll was called, no voice replied. The drummer-boy was gone. Gone ! gone ! but hark from the abyss. What sounds so faintly come. Amid the pauses of the storm ? It is — it is — the drum ; He lives, he beats for aid, he sounds The old familiar call. That to the batteries' smoking throat Had brought his comrades all. Over the dizzy verge that eve, With straining eyes they peered, And heard the rattling of the drum, In accents strange and weird; The notes would cease, and then again Would sound — again to fail. Until no more their fainting moan Came wafted on the gale. And when red Wagram's fight was fought, And the big war was o'er, A dark -haired matron in Baj'onne Stood watching by her door ; Stood watching, praying, many an hour. Till hair and heart grew gray, For the bright-eyed boy who, 'mid the Alps, Was sleeping far away. And still belated peasants tell. How, near that Alpine height, They hear a drum roll loud and clear. On many a storm-vexed night. This story of the olden time With sad eyes they repeat, And whisper by whose ghostly hands The spu'it-drum is beat. THE VOLUNTEERS. The Volunteers ! the Volunteers ! I dream, as in the by-gone years, I hear again their stirring cheers, And see their banners shine. What time the yet unconquered North Poured to the wars her legions forth. For many a wrong to strike a blow With mailed hand at Mexico. The Volunteers ! ah, where are they Who bade the hostile surges stay, When the black forts of Monterey Frowned on their dauntless line ; When undismayed amid the shock Of war, like Cerro Gordo's rock, They stood, or rushed more madly on, Than tropic tempest o'er San Juan. On Angostura's crowded field, Their shattered columns scorned to yield, And wildly yet defiance pealed Their flashing batteries' throats ; And echoed then the rifle's crack. As deadly as when on the track Of flying foe, of yore, its voice Bade Orleans' dark-eyed girls rejoice.