Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

190
THE ATTEMPT
“ Troubadours,” and in the north “ Trouveres in Germany “ Meninsinger,” and in
Eriton “ Minstrels.” Their love songs were called chansons; duets, tensons; and
pastoral songs, pastourelles. The romances in these songs are supposed to have been
borrowed either from eastern fiction or from tales of the enchanter Merlin, and the
deeds of the knights of the Eound Table.
And, now, that I have done, let me say, that though very scant and deficient in
fact or fancy I feel my paper to be, if it only serve for a key-note to other writers, I
shall not have wasted time, as subject for dozens of papers may be found in things
which I have scarcely noticed, or merely hinted at.
Incognita.
D'irtor.
He is not crowned with laurel leaves,
Ho wreath of bay surrounds his head;
Ho funeral dirges, sad and sweet,
Are chanted o’er this warrior’s head.
And o’er him stands no princely tomb,
Bearing the record of his name;
Ho poets, in “ immortal verse, ”
Sing the grand story of his fame.
Yet, when the laurel leaves are dead,
And faded is the wreath of bay,
And poets’ song and marble tomb,
And time itself have passed away—
When numbered with the distant past,
Shall be all worldly power and pelf,
The deathless fame shall still endure
Of this great warrior over self.
Oh ! happy ye, who, fully armed,
Go forth to meet the darts of sin,
Clad in the panoply of God,
The victory ye will surely win.
And when ye reach the peaceful shore,
Where all your warfare shall be o’er,
Will not the resting seem more sweet,
Tor the hard strife that came before ?
Veronica.