Page:The Forest Sanctuary.pdf/208

—Why, this were joy!—upon the tented plain,
Dream on, thou Conqueror!—be a child again!

But thou wilt wake at morn,
With thy strong passions to the conflict leaping,
And thy dark troubled thoughts, all earth o'ersweeping,
—So wilt thou rise, oh! thou of woman born!
And put thy terrors on, till none may dare
Look upon thee—the tired one, slumbering there!

Why, so the peasant sleeps
Beneath his vine!—and man must kneel before thee,
And for his birthright vainly still implore thee!
Shalt thou be stay'd because thy brother weeps?
—Wake! and forget that 'midst a dreaming world,
Thou hast lain thus, with all thy banners furl'd!

Forget that thou, ev'n thou,
Hast feebly shiver'd when the wind passed o'er thee,
And sunk to rest upon the earth which bore thee,
And felt the night-dew chill thy fever'd brow!
Wake with the trumpet, with the spear press on!
—Yet shall the dust take home its mortal son.