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The Grand Old Man by Richard B. Cook
page 40 of 386 (10%)
because he was difficult to learn, and pleading to be as well received
henceforth as Horace.

We give a quotation from a poem, consisting of some two hundred and
fifty lines, from his pen, which, appeared also in the _Miscellany_:

"Who foremost now the deadly spear to dart,
And strike the javelin to the Moslem's heart?
Who foremost now to climb the leaguered wall,
The first to triumph, or the first to fall?
Lo, where the Moslems rushing to the fight,
Back bear their squadrons in inglorious flight.
With plumed helmet, and with glittering lance,
'Tis Richard bids his steel-clad bands advance;
'Tis Richard stalks along the blood-dyed plain,
And views unmoved the slaying and the slain;
'Tis Richard bathes his hands in Moslem blood,
And tinges Jordan with the purple flood.
Yet where the timbrels ring, the trumpets sound,
And tramp of horsemen shakes the solid ground,
Though 'mid the deadly charge and rush of fight,
No thought be theirs of terror or of flight,--
Ofttimes a sigh will rise, a tear will flow,
And youthful bosoms melt in silent woe;
For who of iron frame and harder heart
Can bid the mem'ry of his home depart?
Tread the dark desert and the thirsty sand,
Nor give one thought to England's smiling land?
To scenes of bliss, and days of other years--
The Vale of Gladness and the Vale of Tears;
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