Page:The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Volume 13.pdf/86

1843.] III. THE OBOE.

Now come with me, beside this sedgy brook, Far in the ﬁelds, away from crowded street: Into the ﬂowing water let us look, W'hile o’er our heads the whispering elm-trees meet. There will we listen to a simple tale Of ﬁreside pleasures and of shepherds’ loves : A reedy voice sweet as the nightingale Shall sing of Corydon and Amaryllis ; The grasshopper shall chirp, the bee shall hum, The stream shall murmur to the water-lilies, And all the sounds of summer noon shall come,

And mingling in the oboé’s pastoral tone, Make them forget that man did ever sigh and moan.

IV, THE TRUMPETS AND TROMBONES. A band of martial riders next I hear,

Vhose sharp brass voices cut and rend the air. The shepherd’s tale is mute, and now the ear Is ﬁlled with a wilder clang than it can bear ; Whose arrowy trumpet notes so short and bright, The long-drawn wailing of that loud trombone, Tell of the bloody and tumultuous ﬁght, The march of victory and the dying groan. ‘O’er the green ﬁelds the serried squadrons pour, Killing and burning like the bolts of heaven ; The sweetest ﬂowers with cannon-smoke and gore Are all profaned, and Innocence is driven Forth from her cottages and wooded streams, While over all red Battle ﬁercely gleams.

V.

‘ THE HonNs. But who are these far in the leafy wood, Murmuring such mellow, hesitating notes, It seems the very breath of solitude, Loading with dewy balm each breeze that ﬂoats '4 They are a peasant-group, I know them well, The diﬂident, conscious horns, whose mufﬂed speech

But half expresses what their souls would tell, Aiming at strains their strength can never reach ; An untaught rustic band; and yet how sweet And soothing comes their music o’er the soul! Dear poets of the forest, who would meet Your melodies save where wild waters roll,

Reminding us of Him who by his plough Walked with a laurel-wreath upon his brow! Boston, May, 1843. p

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