Ye know that many a once bright cheek Consuming care, makes wan; Ye know the old, dear happiness That blest your hearths,--is gone. Ye see your comrades smitten down,-- The young, the good, the brave,-- Ye feel, the turf ye tread to-day, May be to-morrow's grave. Yet not a murmur meets the ear, Nor discontent has sway, And not a sullen brow is seen, Through all the camp to-day. No Greek, in Greece's palmiest days, His javelin ever threw, Impelled by more heroic zeal, Or nobler aim than you. No mailed warrior ever bore Aloft his shining lance, More proudly through the tales that fire The page of old romance. Oh! soldiers!--well ye bear your part; The world awards its praise: Be sure,--this grandest tourney o'er,-- 'Twill crown you with its bays! But there's sublimer work than even To free your native sod; --Ye may be loyal to your land, Yet traitors to your God! No Moslem heaven for him who falls, A bribed requital doles; And while ye save your country,--ye, Alas! may lose your souls! No glorious deeds can urge their claim,-- No merits, entrance win,-- The pierced hand of Christ alone, Must freely let you in. Oh! sirs!--there lurks a fiercer foe, Than this that treads your soil, Who springs from unseen ambuscades, To drag you as his spoil. He drugs the heedless conscience, till, No wary watch it keeps, And parleys with the treacherous heart, While fast the warder sleeps. He captive leads the wavering will With specious words, and fair, And enters the beleaguered soul, And rules, a conqueror there. Will ye who fling defiance forth, Against a temporal foe, And rather die, than stoop to wear The chains that gall you so,-- Will ye succumb beneath a power, That grasps at full control, And binds its helpless victims down In servitude of soul? Nay,--act like brave men, as ye are,-- Nor let the despot, sin, Wrest those immortal rights away, Which Christ has died to win. For Heaven--best home--true fatherland, Bear toil, reproach and loss, Your highest honor,--holiest name,-- The soldiers of the Cross! VIII. "My Douglass! my darling!--there once was a time, When we to each other confessed the sublime And perfect sufficiency love could bestow, On the hearts that have learned its completeness to know; We felt that we too had a well-spring of joy, That earthly convulsions could never destroy,-- A mossy, sealed fountain, so cool and so bright, It could solace the soul, let it thirst as it might.