 | Poems |  |
52
SONG OF THE OUTLAWS.
I
Come fill the brown bowl, boys, let care bide the morrow,For Life's but a shaft that flies feathered with sorrow,
And Love is a hart, that hides far from the glade,
So timid at first, that he shuns his own shade:—
Our bodies are bows, and we laugh, drink, and sing,
Just to ease the bent wood, boys, and slacken the string;
Then fill the brown bowl, boys, and let it go round,
Lest the bow string should snap with too sudden a bound.
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II
Oh! the world is a greenwood in which we all dwell;Some know all its wild paths, some tread but the dell;
And they who have found its broad beaten highway,
Oft sigh for the shade in the heat of the day;
Ambition grows weary and pines for the glade,
Where he often in childhood 'mid happiness played—
And fame throws behind him a lingering look,
As the hunted stag glances when passing the brook.
III
'Tis better to fall at the head of the herd,Than to fly back and perish, unmourned, uninterred;
'Tis better to die grasping arrow and bow,
Amid those that we love, than be slave to a foe:
To be bound with the brave amid Victory's sheaves,
Than to wither the last ear the reaper's hand leaves:
For Life is the target at which Death's shafts fly,
If they miss us we live—if they hit us we die.
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IV
If we die in the greenwood, the sound of the hornStill rings out as sweetly, both even and morn;
And the stag bounds as freely above us, as when
Our loud whoop and hallo awakened the glen;
And the old hoary oaks just wave o'er us the same
As they did, when beneath them we started the game;
And the stream rolls as blythe, with its tink, tinkling song;
And the Abbey-bell rings out its merry ding-dong.
V
Let others go slumber beneath the cold stone,Deep, silent, and dark; narrow, dreary, and lone;
Give me the green forest turf for my last bed:
Where the hart and the hind will pass over my head;
Where the blue-bell and violet above me shall wave,
And the merry birds gaily sing over my grave;
Where a thousand old oaks will a watch round me keep,
And their broad branches roar, while they sing me to sleep.
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VI
Oh! the Priest, when he shrives us, will smile at our deeds;And the Leech heave a sigh as the ebbing heart bleeds:—
For the soul, that but kindled when tyrants did wrong,
Shall have little to fear as it journeys along.
On our grave will the peasant drop many a tear,
And maidens at twilight be found kneeling there;
And pilgrim and minstrel beside it be seen,
Breathing forth a low prayer for the Outlaw in green.
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