Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/148

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

BYRON

Yet left undimmed (her valediction sung
With Juan's smiles and tears) his natal ray
Of genius inextinguishably young,—
An Eôs through those mists proclaiming day.


How then, when to his ear came Hellas' cry,
He shred the garlands of the wild night's feast,
And rose a chief, to lead—alas, to die
And leave men mourning for that music ceased!


America! When nations for thy knell
Listened, one prophet oracled thy part:
Now, in thy morn of strength, remember well
The bard whose chant foretold thee as thou art.


Sky, mount, and forest, and high-sounding main.
The storm-cloud's vortex, splendor of the day,
Gloom of the night,—with these abide his strain,—
And these are thine, though he has passed away;


Their elemental force had roused to might
Great Nature's child in this her realm supreme,—

128