Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79.
Wolfe and Montcalm
By Charles Sangster (1822–1893)Q
The Titan Strength has here set up his throne;
Unmindful of the sanguinary fight,
The roar of cannon mingling with the moan
Of mutilated soldiers years agone,
That gave the place a glory and a name
Among the nations. France was heard to groan,
England rejoiced, but checked the proud acclaim,—
A brave young chief had fallen to vindicate her fame.
As falls the young oak when the mountain blast
Rings like a clarion, and the tempest jeers
To see its pride to earth untimely cast.
So fell brave Wolfe, heroic to the last,
Amid the tempest and grim scorn of war,
While leering Fate with look triumphant passed,
Pleased with the slaughter and the horrid jar
That lured him hence to see how paled a hero’s star,
With more impassioned radiance; as the sun
That sets at evening like a world on flame
Returns with calmer glory. He had run
The race that Fortune bade him, and had won
The prize which thousands perish for in vain.
For he had triumphed; they depart undone,
Like a dark day that sinks in cloud and rain,
But never can return or see the morn again.
Heroic Wolfe! the martial path he chose
Nipped his long-cherished dreams just as the bud
Of his fair promise, opening to a rose,
Was drenched in tears and stained with life’s dear blood.
A hero-martyr; for his country’s good
Yielding up life and all he held most dear;
A mind with finest sympathies imbued,
A wise companion and a friend sincere,
A soul to burn with love, a nature to revere.
The page historic or the hostile plain;
No braver souls the storm of battle faced,
None more heroic will e’er breathe again.
They passed unto their rest without a stain
Upon their kindred natures or true hearts.
One graceful column to the noble twain
Speaks of a nation’s gratitude, and starts
The tear that Valor claims and Feeling’s self imparts.
They lived like brothers, and like men they died;
One worthy of the trust he could not save,
The other flushed not with poor mortal pride,
But giving God the praise, when on his side
The bird of Victory perched. Worthy were they
That two great nations on their zeal relied,
And wept their loss, wept the distressful day
That saw two lives like theirs untimely swept away.
Had climbed the sun upon that autumn day
That led me to those battlements. The corn
Upon the distant fields was ripe. Away
To the far left the swelling highlands lay;
The quiet cove; the river bright and still;
The gallant ships that made the harbor gay;
And like a Thought swayed by a potent Will,
Point Levi, seated at the foot of the old hill:
The stately dwellings, and the monuments
Upreared to human fame, compared with these?
Those ancient hills stood proudly ere the tents
Of the first voyageurs—swart visitants
From the fair, sunny Loire—were pitched upon
Wild Stadacona’s height. The armaments
Whose flaming missiles smote the solid stone
Aroused yon granite Cape that answered groan for groan.