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HANNIBAL'S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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HANNIBAL'S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.

In the rich shadows of a gorgeous tent
Sat the famed chief of Carthage, as through bars
Of heavy gold the day's last beams were sent;
And Eve, in her tiara of bright stars
And garniture of purple, to her breast
Like a fond mother, took her child to rest.
The boding phantom of his bosom brings
The Alps before him, with their icy crags,
For victory, with her broad and starry wings,
Is settling brightly on the Roman flags;
And as the silent shadows round him close,
His voice finds way through barriers of woes:—
“My lost, my fallen brother! can it be
That the proud beauty of thy brow is dim,
Bright victor of fierce battles? Is the dust
That hides the commonest soldier, strewed o'er thee?
And must thy falchion ignominious rust?
Yet, he fell bravely, not unworthy him
Who was the offspring of a battle-star,
And cradled in the bloody arms of war!
And 't is my joy that he was not of those
Who shrink from peril; with a stoic's pride
He bared his bosom to his country's foes,
And, rushing to the combat, fought and died!
Lost star of glory! in my childhood's time
Thou wert my sweetest counsellor and guide;
And in the freshness of my manhood's prime
I wooed thee to my bosom as a bride:
But thou, whose banner in the dust is veiled,
With thee the aim of my existence died;

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And Fear, that never until now assailed,
Sits like a mocking demon by my side!
“For hungry wolves, the Spartan mothers tore
The babes from their warm bosoms, every day;
And if they smiled not, they at least forbore
To give vain sorrow an o'ermastering sway:
And have I more to sacrifice than they?
Yes, time, in part, their losses might restore,
But mine must be remediless for aye.
“I hear the constant singing of the streams,
Down in the vineyards, beautiful and wide,—
O thou embitterer of my goldenest dreams,
I thought to conquer thee before I died!
Ye gods! must I be rifled of that joy,
And taunted like a beardless, love-sick boy!
Yet have I battled with Rome's chiefest men,
And triumphed gloriously; her brazen gates
Had not availed her haughty spirit then,
Had I led firmly onward,—but the Fates
Make me their sport and plaything, when one blow,
Dealt by the hand of her eternal foe,
Had crushed her power and placed her at my feet,—
Her mighty heart my pillow: this were sweet!
“Gaul's proudest chivalry I 've met in fight,
And trampled them as reeds upon the plain;
Slaughtered at bay, and hunted down in flight,
They cried for quarter, but they cried in vain;
And the blue waters of the Rhone that night
Stood red and stagnant, choked with heaps of slain!”
Were there no spectral shadows gliding there,
O baffled champion, for thy country's weal?
No semblances of “angels with bright hair
Dabbled in blood,” to fix the damning seal
To a close-hugged ambition? Better dwell
The lowliest shepherd of Arcadia's bowers,
Than mount to where the insatiate fire of hell,
Like to a serpent's tooth, the heart devours!