Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. Yet there the soul shall enter which hath earned That privilege by virtue.-"Ill," said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight [and night: While tears were thy best pastime,-day "And while my youthful peers, before my eyes, (Each hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports,-or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council were detained; What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. "The wished-for wind was given :-I then revolved The oracle, upon the silent sea; And, if no worthier led the way, resolved That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be [strand, The foremost prow in pressing to the Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. "Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang When of thy loss I thought, beloved wife! On thee too fondly did my memory hang, And on the joys we shared in mortal life, The paths which we had trod-these fountains-flowers; My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers. cry, "Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend Towards a higher object.-Love was given, Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end: For this the passion to excess was drivenThat self might be annulled her bondage prove The fetters of a dream, opposed to love." Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears! Round the dear shade she would have clung-'tis vain. The hours are past-too brief had they been years; And him no mortal effort can detain: Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, He through the portal takes his silent way, And on the palace floor a lifeless corse she lay. By no weak pity might the gods be moved; She who thus perished not without the crime Of lovers that in reason's spite have loved, Was doomed to wander in a grosser clime, Apart from happy ghosts-that gather flowers Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers. Yet tears to human suffering are due; As fondly he believes.-Upon the side And ever, when such stature they had gained That Ilium's walls were subject to their view, "But should suspense permit the foe to [array, Behold, they tremble!-haughty their The trees' tall summits withered at the sight; Yet of their number no one dares to die ! A constant interchange of growth and In soul I swept the indignity away: Old frailties then recurred:-but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. “And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government too slow; Be thy affections raised and solemnized. blight! * The sun has burnt her coal-black hair; HER eyes are wild, her head is bare, And she came far from over the main. Her eyebrows have a rusty stain, For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. 16, cap. 44; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus see the "Iphigenia in Aulis" of Euripides. -Virgil places the shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy lovers. I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky; And I bethought me of the playful hare: Even such a happy child of earth am I ; Even as these blissful creatures do I fare; Far from the world I walk, and from all care; But there may come another day to meSolitude, pain of eart, distress, and poverty? My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, As if life's business were a summer mood; As if all needful things would come unsought To genial faith, still rich in genial good; But how can he expect that others should Build for him, sow for him, and at his call Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all? I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy Himself he propped, his body, limbs, and face, Upon a long gray staff of shaven wood : And, still as drew near with gentle pace, Upon the margin of that moorish flood Motionless as a cloud the old man stood; That heareth not the loud winds when they call; And moveth altogether, if it move at all. At length, himself unsettling, he the pond A gentle answer did the old man make, drew : "And, close beside this aged thorn, All lovely colours there you see, "Ah me! what lovely tints are there! This heap of earth o'ergrown with moss, Is like an infant's grave in size, But never, never any where, An infant's grave was half so fair. "Now would you see this aged thorn, For oft there sits between the heap And that same pond of which I spoke, And to herself she cries, "At all times of the day and night And there, beside the thorn, she sits 'Oh, misery! oh, misery! Oh, woe is me! oh, misery!" "I cannot tell; I wish I could; I never heard of such as dare "'Tis known, that twenty years are passed While friends and kindred all approved Of him whom tenderly she loved. 'And they had fixed the wedding day, The morning that must wed them both; But Stephen to another maid Had sworn another oath; And with this other maid to church A fire was kindled in her breast, They say, full six months after this, Alas! her lamentable state Even to a careless eye was plain; She was with child, and she was mad; From her exceeding pain. O guilty father, -would that death Now wherefore, thus, by day and night, "Sad case for such a brain to hold In rain, in tempest, and in snow, Communion with a stirring child! Last Christmas-eve we talked of this, And when at last her time drew near, |