Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. - Various - Страница 3

Two hundred years ago,6 the moon

Shone on a battle plain;

Cold through that glowing night of June

Lay steeds and riders slain;

And daisies, bending 'neath strange dew,

Wept in the silver light;

The very turf a regal hue

Assumed that fatal night.

Time past – but long, to tell the tale,

Some battle-ax or shield,

Or cloven skull, or shattered mail,

Were found upon the field;

The grass grew thickest on the spot

Where high were heaped the dead,

And well it marked had men forgot,

Where the great charge was made.

To-day – the sun looks laughing down

Upon the harvest plain,

The little gleaners, rosy-brown,

The merry reapers' train;

The rich sheaves heaped together stand,

And resting in their shade,

A mother, working close at hand,

Her sleeping babe hath laid.

A battle-field it was, and is,

For serried spears are there,

And against mighty foes upreared —

Gaunt hunger, pale despair.

We'll thank God for the hearts of old,

Their strife our freedom sealed;

We'll praise Him for the sheaves of gold

Now on the battle-field.