1809 4

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1809.4
War Songs
No. 2

“W.”
The Athenaeum, V (March, 1809), p. 242

I mark'd his madly rolling eye,
    I caught its furious blood-red flame,
I saw their panic squadrons fly
    Where'er th' impetuous warrior came,
With gleaming sword and waving plume,
Like some wild meteor of the gloom.

Fiercer and fiercer wax'd the fight
    And ruddier grew the field of gore;
In vain I strain'd my aching sight,
    I mark'd his waving plume no more:
In long unequal strife he bled,
And mingled with the hostile dead.

And shall he thus unhonour'd lie,
    Nor know a grateful monarch's care?
No, raise the mausoleum high,
    Place his sad sacred relics there,
And, on recording marble, tell
How my brave warrior fought and fell.

M-----.


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