FRAGMENT OF CHORUS OF A

'DEJANEIRA'

O FRIVOLOUS mind of man,

Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts! Though man bewails you not,

How I bewail you!

Little in your prosperity

Do you seek counsel of the Gods.

Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone.
In profound silence stern,

Among their savage gorges and cold springs,

Unvisited remain

The great oracular shrines.

Thither in your adversity

Do you betake yourselves for light,

But strangely misinterpret all you hear.

For you will not put on

New hearts with the enquirer's holy robe,
And purged, considerate minds.

And him on whom, at the end
Of toil and dolour untold,
The Gods have said that repose
At last shall descend undisturb'd-

Him you expect to behold

In an easy

old age, in a happy home; No end but this you praise.

But him, on whom, in the prime
Of life, with vigour undimm'd,
With unspent mind, and a soul
Unworn, undebased, undecay'd,
Mournfully grating, the gates

Of the city of death have for ever closed-
Him, I count him, well-starr'd.

EARLY DEATH AND FAME

FOR him who must see many years,
I praise the life which slips away

Out of the light and mutely; which avoids
Fame, and her less fair followers, envy, strife,
Stupid detraction, jealousy, cabal,

Insincere praises; which descends

The quiet mossy track to age.

But, when immature death

Beckons too early the

guest

From the half-tried banquet of life,
Young, in the bloom of his days;
Leaves no leisure to press,
Slow and surely, the sweets
Of a tranquil life in the shade-
Fuller for him be the hours!
Give him emotion, though pain!

Let him live, let him feel: I have lived.

Heap up his moments with life!
Triple his pulses with fame!

PHILOMELA

HARK! ah, the nightingale

The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst !
What triumph! hark !—what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,

Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world
pain-

Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn

With its cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm ?

Dost thou to-night behold,

Here, through the moonlight on this English

grass,

The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?

Dost thou again peruse

With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes

The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame ? Dost thou once more assay

Thy flight, and feel come over thee,

Poor fugitive, the feathery change

Once more, and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,

Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale?
Listen, Eugenia—

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves !

Again-thou hearest ?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!