And him, whose heart still weak from fear Beats all too gayly for the time, Know that intemperate glee is crime While one dead hero claims a tear. Yet go thou forth, my song! and thrill, With sober joy, the troubled days; A nation's hymn of grateful praise May not be hushed for private ill. Our foes are fallen! Flash, ye wires! The mighty tidings far and nigh! Ye cities! write them on the sky In purple and in emerald fires! They came with many a haughty boast; Their threats were heard on every breeze; They darkened half the neighboring seas; And swooped like vultures on the coast. False recreants in all knightly strife, Their way was wet with woman's tears; Behind them flamed the toil of years, And bloodshed stained the sheaves of life. They fought as tyrants fight, or slaves; God gave the dastards to our hands; Their bones are bleaching on the sands, Or mouldering slow in shallow graves. What though we hear about our path The heavens with howls of vengeance rent? The venom of their hate is spent; We need not heed their fangless wrath. Meantime the stream they strove to chain Now drinks a thousand springs, and sweeps With broadening breast, and mightier deeps, And rushes onward to the main; While down the swelling current glides Our Ship of State before the blast, With streamers poured from every mast, Her thunders roaring from her sides. Lord! bid the frenzied tempest cease, Hang out thy rainbow on the sea! Laugh round her, waves! in silver glee, And speed her to the port of peace! The Unknown Dead The rain is plashing on my sill, But all the winds of Heaven are still; And so it falls with that dull sound Which thrills us in the church-yard ground, When the first spadeful drops like lead Upon the coffin of the dead. Beyond my streaming window-pane, I cannot see the neighboring vane, Yet from its old familiar tower The bell comes, muffled, through the shower. What strange and unsuspected link Of feeling touched, has made me think-- While with a vacant soul and eye I watch that gray and stony sky-- Of nameless graves on battle-plains Washed by a single winter's rains, Where, some beneath Virginian hills, And some by green Atlantic rills, Some by the waters of the West, A myriad unknown heroes rest. Ah! not the chiefs, who, dying, see Their flags in front of victory, Or, at their life-blood's noble cost Pay for a battle nobly lost, Claim from their monumental beds The bitterest tears a nation sheds.