Soldiers, prepare! Our cause is Heaven's cause;
Soldiers, prepare! Be worthy of our cause:
Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky:
Prepare, O troops that are to fall to-day!
Prepare, prepare.
Alfred shall smile, and make his harp rejoice;
The Norman William and the learned Clerk,
And Lion-Heart, and black-brow'd Edward with
His loyal queen shall rise, and welcome us!
Prepare, prepare.
THE COUCH OF DEATH.
THE veiled Evening walked solitary down the
western hills, and Silence reposed in the
valley; the birds of day were heard in their nests,
rustling in brakes and thickets; and the owl and
bat flew round the darkening trees: all is silent
when Nature takes her repose.—In former times,
on such an evening, when the cold clay breathed
with life, and our ancestors, who now sleep in
their graves, walked on the steadfast globe, the
remains of a family of the tribes of Earth, a mother
and a sister were gathered to the sick bed of a
youth. Sorrow linked them together; leaning on
