So with brave hearts and dauntless, they sailed for the Unknown;

For each he sought his inmost thought, and a secret of his own.

The land it boasts its titled hosts-they cannot vie with these,

The Merchants of Old England, the Seigneurs of the Seas,

In the days of Queen Victoria, for they have borne her

sway

From the far Atlantic islands, to the islands of Cathay, And o'er one-sixth of all the earth, and over all the main

Like some good Fairy, Freedom marks and blesses her domain.

And of the mighty empires that arose, and ruled, and

died,

Since on the sea, his heritage, the Tyrian looked in

pride,

Not Carthage, with her Hannibal, not Athens when she bore

Her bravest and her best to the Syracusan shore,

While the words of Alcibiades yet echoed wide and far, "Where are corn-fields, and are olive-grounds, the Athenian's limits are."

And in each trireme was many a dream of the West and its unknown bliss ;

Of the maidens of Iberia, and the feasts of Sybaris— Not in those younger ages, when St. Mark's fair city ran Her race of fame and frailty,-each monarch's courtezan; Not Lusia in her palmier hour, in those commercial days When Vasco sailed for Calicut, and Camöens sang his praise;

Not Spain with all her Indies, the while she seemed to fling

Her fetters on the waters, like the Oriental king;

Not one among the conquerors that are or ever were, In wealth, or fame, or grandeur with England may compare.

A. H. CLOUGH. 1819-1861

EASTER DAY

NAPLES, 1849

I

Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I passed,
With fiercer heat than flamed above my head,
My heart was hot within me; till at last

My brain was lightened when my tongue had said—
Christ is not risen!

Christ is not risen, no

He lies and moulders low;
Christ is not risen !

What though the stone were rolled away, and though The grave found empty there?—

If not there, then elsewhere;

If not where Joseph laid him first, why then
Where other men

Translaid Him after, in some humbler clay.
Long ere to-day

Corruption that sad perfect work hath done;
Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun :
The foul engendered worm
Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form
Of our most Holy and Anointed One.
He is not risen, no—

He lies and moulders low;

Christ is not risen !

What if the women, ere the dawn was grey,
Saw one or more great angels, as they say

(Angels, or Him Himself)? Yet neither there, nor then, Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all,

Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten;

Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul;
Save in an after Gospel and late Creed,
He is not risen, indeed,—

Christ is not risen !

Or, what if e'en, as runs a tale, the Ten
Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again?
What if at Emmaüs inn, and by Capernaum's Lake,
Came One, the bread that brake-

Came One that spake as never mortal spake,

And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about?

Ah! "some" did well to "doubt"!
Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass,
Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas !
He was not risen, no-

He lay and mouldered low;

Christ was not risen !

As circulates in some great city crowd

A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud,
From no determined centre, or of fact

Or authorship exact,
Which no man can deny

Nor verify;

So spread the wondrous fame;

He all the same

Lay senseless, mouldering, low:

He was not risen, no—

Christ was not risen!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just

Yea, of that Just One, too!

This is the one sad Gospel that is true-
Christ is not risen !

Is He not risen, and shall we not rise?
Oh, we unwise!

What did we dream, what wake we to discover?
Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains cover!
In darkness and great gloom,

Come ere we thought it is our day of doom;
From the cursed world, which is one tomb,
Christ is not risen!

Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss:
There is no heaven but this;

There is no hell,

Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well,
Seeing it visits still

With equalest apportionment of ill

Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust The unjust and the just

With Christ who is not risen.

Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved:
Of all the creatures under heaven's wide cope
We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,
And most beliefless, that had most believed.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just-
Yea, of that Just One, too!

It is the one sad Gospel that is true!
Christ is not risen !