University of Virginia Library

CHILDISH MEMORIES.

'Midst Passion's conflicts in our riper years,
Amidst its hurricanes of sighs and tears,
How ever and anon sweet Memories rise
Before our tortured and distracted eyes
Of our own smiling childhood, glad and gay,
Ere the dear doves of Peace had flown away—
When all was beautiful with heart-born joy,
And we were unconversant with annoy,
Like shaken Banners do those Memories sweep,
(Torn but amidst the Battle's terrors deep,
Shining and glittering)—o'er the gloomy field,
Which they, and only they, adorn and gild,
And to that darksome stage of fight and drear,
They lend a troubled show of brilliant cheer.
Fair Banners! droop and cling around your staves,
Fierce blows the storm, the battle-tempest raves—
How may your streaming shreds endure the blast—
And still the angry sky grows more o'ercast,
The strife still deepens, and the combat grows,
Fired with strong hate foes thickly croud on foes—
The broil still gathers, and the conflict spreads,
Trampled in dust must lie those glittering shreds,
Their brightness tarnished and their hues effaced,
Their lustrous blazonries no longer traced,
Their folds of fluttering grace more fiercely rent,
Lost in the storm, to which such light they lent.
But 'tis not so!—amidst the gathering gloom
The thickening horrors of encroaching doom—
The wild confusion of these conflicts rude,
The sternest struggles of that hideous feud,
The dread collision and the deadly shock
That seems Endurance' wearied powers to mock,
Those banners, still they brave the stormy blast,
They flutter on and glitter to the last!
While the proud plume and conquest-claiming crest
Are stripped of all their honours, and depressed,
And the fierce Battle's marshalled Powers commence
To faulter in defiance and defence—
Those floating banners still their faint gleam lend,
And flutter still—and glitter to the end!