THE SPARTAN'S MARCH.
87
Was it the hunters' choral strain
To the woodland-goddess pour'd?
Did virgin-hands in Pallas' fane
Strike the full-sounding chord?
But helms were glancing on the stream,
Spears ranged in close array,
And shields flung back a glorious beam
To the morn of a fearful day!
And the mountain-echoes of the land
Swell'd through the deep-blue sky,
While to soft strains moved forth a band
Of men that moved to die.
They march'd not with the trumpet's blast,
Nor bade the horn peal out,
And the laurel-groves, as on they pass'd,
Rung with no battle-shout!
They ask'd no clarion's voice to fire
Their souls with an impulse high;
But the Dorian reed and the Spartan lyre
For the sons of liberty!
