National Lyrics, and Songs for Music/The Muffled Drum

by Felicia Hemans

THE MUFFLED DRUM.*^[1]

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The muffled drum was heard
    In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound
    Which told the hamlets round
        Of a soldier's burial rite.

But it told them not how dear
    In a home beyond the main,
Was the warrior youth laid low that hour,
    By a mountain stream of Spain.

The oaks of England wav'd
    O'er the slumbers of his race,
But a pine of the Ronceval made moan
    Above his last lone place:

When the muffled drum was heard
    In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound
    Which call'd strange echoes round
        To the soldier's burial rite.

Brief was the sorrowing there,
    By the stream from battle red,
And tossing on its wave the plumes
    Of many a stately head;

But a mother—soon to die,
    And a sister—long to weep,
Ev'n then were breathing prayer for him,
    In that home beyond the deep:

While the muffled drum was heard
    In the Pyrenees by night,
With a dull deep rolling sound,
    And the dark pines mourn'd round,
        O'er the soldier's burial-rite.

1.  

   *Set to beautiful music by John Lodge, Esq.