Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/68

 52 JULIA L. DUMONT. [1820-30. All ! where are those who proudly trod thy brow, Ere yet thy bright green coronals waved there — The strong, the brave, their race — where is it now ? Earth's living nations no memorial bear ! Where then the sounds of life rose on the air, A grave-like silence, long and deep, has pass'd, Save when the wolf howl'd from his rocky lair, Or owlet-screams rose on the fitful blast. Bear'st thou no trace within thy sullen breast, Thou seal'd-up relic of the mouldering dead ? Is there no record on thy form impress'd Of those who rear'd thee from thy valley bed ? Did pale Decay, with slow though lingering tread, Consign their race to nature's common tomb? Or sweeping Plague, with blasting wing outspread. Their brightness quench in everlasting gloom ? And thou, that mock'st Destruction's wrath- ful storm, While living worlds beneath its blast are crush'd. Say for what end the dead upheav'd thy form, Or consecrated thus thy breathless dust. Did calm Devotion here, with holy trust. Erect her temple to the living God ? Or lordly Pride, with weak ambition flush'd. Heap up thy dark and monumental sod ? Or hid'st thou those, in thy sepulchral breast. Who erst were scattered o'er the vales around ? A mighty tomb, where nations, laid to rest In ghastly sleep, await the trumpet's sound. When Earth's dim records are at length unbound, And in her last funereal lights reveal'd. While rising bones burst from their prison ground, Shall then thy heaving brow its mys- teries yield? Vainly I ask — but o'er the musing soul A noiseless voice comes from thy dust to chide : "Man may exult in glory's glittering roll, And o'er the earth, Hfe, for a while pre- side ; But learn to know the wreck of human pride ! Her fairest names time may at length efface ; Dark o'er her cities flow Oblivion's tide. And Death abide where life and joy have place." THE HOME-BOUND GREEKS.* Days, weeks and months wore heavy on. And still the Grecian bands Their slow but glorious pathway won. Through vast barbarian lands. name of it was Theches. When the men who were in the front had mounted the heiglit, and looked down upon the sea, a great shout proceeded from tliem ; and Xenophon and the rear-guard, on hearing it, thought that some new enemies were assaihng the front, for in the rear, too, the peo- ple from the country that they had burnt were following them, and the rear-guard, by placing an ambuscade, had killed some, and taken others prisoners, and had captured about twenty shields made of raw ox -hides with the hair on. But as the noise still increased, and drew nearer, and as those who came up from time to time kept running at full speed to join those who were continually shouting, the cries becoming louder as the men became more numer-
 * On the fifth day they came to the mountain ; and the