Page:The Cornhill magazine (Volume 1).djvu/138

The First Morning of 1860.

One evening mid the summer flown
    Has stamp'd my memory more than any;
    It pass'd us by among the many,
And yet it stands there, all alone.

We sate without our open'd room,
    While fell the eve's transparent shade;
The out-door world, all warmth and bloom,
    To us a summer parlour made.

The garden's cultivated grace,
    The luxury of neatness round,
The careless amplitude of space,
    The silence, and the casual sound,

Told of a state thro' many years
    Serenely safe in doing well;
And while we sate, there struck our ears
    The summons of the evening bell.

It call'd to food, it call'd to rest,
    The many whom the rich man's dome
Had gathered in its ample breast,
    To them and him alike a home.

That very hour, was thund'ring o'er
    A neighbouring land, the tramp of War,
Which stalked along the lovely shore,
    Its shapes to blast, its sounds to mar.

And 'gainst our own, the reflux wave
    Had pushed its harsh in-flooding swell:
The clouds which there a tempest gave,
    In shadow on our own land fell.

The pang my bosom rudely beat—
    What if that fate our own had been?
What if or victory or defeat
    Had wrapp'd us in its woe, and sin?