The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5


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of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments--in her  
burning enthusiasms--in her gentle charities--in her meek and devotional  
endurances--but above all--ah, far above all, he kneels to it--he  
worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the  
altogether divine majesty--of her love.  
Let me conclude by--the recitation of yet another brief poem--one very  
different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by  
Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern  
and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare,  
we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize  
with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the  
poem. To do this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul  
of the old cavalier:--  
Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all,  
And don your helmes amaine:  
Deathe's couriers. Fame and Honor call  
No shrewish teares shall fill your eye  
When the sword-hilt's in our hand,--  
Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe  
For the fayrest of the land;  
Let piping swaine, and craven wight,  
Thus weepe and poling crye,  
Our business is like men to fight.  
187  


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185 186 187 188 189

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