Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MUFFLED DRUM, by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MUFFLED DRUM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The muffled drum was heard
Last Line: O'er the soldier's burial-rite.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Funerals; Soldiers; Burials


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 waved
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 called strange echoes round
To the soldier's burial-rite.

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

But a mother -- soon to die,
And a sister -- long to weep,
Even then were breathing prayers 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 mourned around,
O'er the soldier's burial-rite.





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