Victor And Vanquished

As one who long hath fled with panting breath
    Before his foe, bleeding and near to fall,
    I turn and set my back against the wall,
    And look thee in the face, triumphant Death,
I call for aid, and no one answereth;
    I am alone with thee, who conquerest all;
    Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall,
    For thou art but a phantom and a wraith.
Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt,
    With armor shattered, and without a shield,
    I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt;
I can resist no more, but will not yield.
    This is no tournament where cowards tilt;
    The vanquished here is victor of the field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Under the walls of Monterey
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            Victor Galbraith!
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Voluntaries

I

Low and mournful be the strain,
Haughty thought be far from me;
Tones of penitence and pain,
Meanings of the tropic sea;
Low and tender in the cell
Where a captive sits in chains.
Crooning ditties treasured well
From his Afric's torrid plains.
Sole estate his sire bequeathed,--
Hapless sire to hapless son,--
Was the wailing song he breathed,
And his chain when life was done.

What his fault, or what his crime?
Or what ill planet crossed his prime?
Heart too soft and will too weak
To front the fate that crouches near,--
Dove beneath the vulture's beak;--
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Dragged from his mother's arms and breast,
Displaced, disfurnished here,
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Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the Turret.

(March, 1862.)


Your honest heart of duty, Worden,
So helped you that in fame you dwell;
You bore the first iron battle's burden
Sealed as in a diving-bell.
Alcides, groping into haunted hell
To bring forth King Admetus' bride,
Braved naught more vaguely direful and untried.
What poet shall uplift his charm,
Bold Sailor, to your height of daring,
And interblend therewith the calm,
And build a goodly style upon your bearing.

Escaped the gale of outer ocean -
Cribbed in a craft which like a log
Was washed by every billow's motion -
By night you heard of Og
The huge; nor felt your courage clog
At tokens of his onset grim:
You marked the sunk ship's flag-staff slim,
Lit by her burning sister's heart;
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Herman Melville

Prospice

Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle s to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
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The Lost Battle.

("Allah! qui me rendra-")

[XVL, May, 1828.]


Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array?
My emirs and my cavalry that shook the earth to-day;
My tent, my wide-extending camp, all dazzling to the sight,
Whose watchfires, kindled numberless beneath the brow of night,
Seemed oft unto the sentinel that watched the midnight hours,
As heaven along the sombre hill had rained its stars in showers?
Where are my beys so gorgeous, in their light pelisses gay,
And where my fierce Timariot bands, so fearless in the fray;
My dauntless khans, my spahis brave, swift thunderbolts of war;
My sunburnt Bedouins, trooping from the Pyramids afar,
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Victor-Marie Hugo

The Battle.

    Heavy and solemn,
    A cloudy column,
    Through the green plain they marching came!
Measure less spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The looks are bent on the shaking ground,
And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound;
Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,
Gallops the major along the front
        "Halt!"
And fettered they stand at the stark command,
And the warriors, silent, halt!

Proud in the blush of morning glowing,
What on the hill-top shines in flowing,
"See you the foeman's banners waving?"
"We see the foeman's banners waving!"
"God be with ye children and wife!"
Hark to the music the trump and the fife,
How they ring through the ranks which they rouse to the strife!
Thrilling the...

Friedrich Schiller