Attempt > Volume 3

GG THE ATTEMPT.
And nought but its memory left at last;
The echo alone of the trumpet's breath
Floats faint through the still abode of death.
Say, will the glory the lad has won
Dry his mother's tears for her fallen son ?
Will she breathe with less angiiish his well-loved name,
Because it is linked with a soldier's fame ?
Will the floVrs in the churchyard seem e'er as fair
To her, than once in the days that were.
Because she will see them bend and wave.
In the gi'ass that covers a hero's gi-ave ?
No ; ask her now as she clasps the hand,
That shall never again wield its glorious brand,
As she looks on the face so thin and pale,
So soon to be hidden by death's dim veil,—
Ask if the glory that round his brow
The laurel has wreathed, can comfort her now ?
All her soul's great grief in her eye you may see—
" Oh my son ! my son ! what is/imie to me V
Mas Alta.
€olvimhnB,
Brightly the warm August sun laughs on the waters that lave round the port
of Palos ; but his beams light not the gloom in many a heart, nor roll away the
misty forebodings that settle there. For in those three small ships, that fill their
white sails with the eastern breeze, are one hundred and twenty beings, leaving the
warm light of their pleasant home, to sail with one called Christopher Columbus
over the trackless surf, dark with the mist of ages, to the shore he hoped to find
beyond. But who can tempt the dangers of that mighty vast that circles round our
globe unscathed ? Who dare the terrors of the bounding chaos in the west, and live 1
What wonder then, that within and around these little barks rise many a bitter and
most hopeless thought; for who can enter into, now, and share the visions of this