Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of
yore,
Who danced our infancy
upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store
Of their strange ventures
happed by land or sea,
How are they blotted from the things that be!
How few, all weak and
withered of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity,
Like stranded wrecks,
the tide returning hoarse,
To sweep them from out sight! Time rolls his
ceaseless course.
Yet live there still who can remember well,
How, when a mountain
chief his bugle blew,
Both field and forest, dingle, cliff; and dell,
And solitary heath,
the signal knew;
And fast the faithful clan around him drew.
What time the warning
note was keenly wound,
What time aloft their kindred banner flew,
While clamorous war-pipes
yelled the gathering sound,
And while the Fiery Cross glanced like a meteor, round.
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