| Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829. | | | | The Warrior | | By George W. Patten |
| | | “THE MORNING sun is shining bright upon the battle plain, | |
| And still thou sleep’st!—wake! warrior, wake—and take thy steed again, | |
| The gore he ’s shaken from his mane, and now ’t is floating fast, | |
| Upon the breeze as it was wont amid the battle blast, | |
| Thrice hath the war-peal thunder’d past since thou hast sunk to sleep, | 5 |
| Hath not it changed thy dreary dream, nor broke thy slumber deep? | |
| Thrice hath the foemen’s banner red in triumph floated by; | |
| Did not the gleaming of its stars arrest thy closing eye? | |
| Thy charger hot hath raised his voice as if thy rest to break; | |
| He listens for his rider’s call—wake! slumbering warrior—wake!” | 10 |
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| “Hush! gentle stranger, hush that strain,” a weeping mother sung, | |
| And sadly on the sighing winds the mournful music rung, | |
| “Hush, gentle stranger, hush that strain—my heart is lone and drear, | |
| Thou canst not wake my warrior boy, who sleeps in silence here. | |
| I ’ve comb’d his flowing flaxen hair, and from it wiped the dew, | 15 |
| Come, gaze upon the features pale, which oft I ’ve loved to view, | |
| And if thy bosom e’er hath throbb’d a warrior’s joys to know, | |
| Oh! read them on that sunken cheek—and in a mother’s wo. | |
| —They said, my boy, that Fame would twine a laurel green for thee, | |
| Alas! alas! that it should leave the cypress sad to me.’” | 20 | | | |
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