laborious for her people and her poor-
voice in the rich dawn of ampler day-
far-sighted summoner of war and waste
to fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace-
sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,
dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,
beyond all titles, and a household name,
hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.

Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure;
break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,
remembering all the beauty of that star
which shone so close beside thee, that ye made
one light together, but has past and leaves
the Crown a lonely splendour. May all love,
his love, unseen but felt, o'ershadow thee,
the love of all thy sons encompass thee,
the love of all thy daughters cherish thee,
the love of all thy people comfort thee,
till God's love set thee at his side again!

A. TENNYSON

1029

DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND

THE MESSIAH

WHO

Ch. HO is this that cometh from Edom,

with garments deeply dyed from Botsra? this, that is magnificent in his apparel,

marching on in the greatness of his strength? Me. I, who publish righteousness and am mighty to save. Ch. Wherefore is thy apparel red,

and thy garments as of one that treadeth the wine-vat! Me. I have trodden the vat alone:

and of the people there was not a man with me:
I trod them in mine anger,
and their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments;
for the day of vengeance was in my heart,
and the year of my redeemed was come.
I looked, and there was no one to help;
therefore mine own arm wrought salvation for me,
and mine indignation itself sustained me.

ISAIAH

1030 KING HENRY V BEFORE THE GATES OF HARFLEUR

H

OW yet resolves the governor of the town? therefore, to our best mercy give yourselves; or like to men proud of destruction, defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier, (a name, that in my thoughts, becomes me best), if I begin the battery once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur till in her ashes she lie buried. The gates of mercy shall be all shut up; and the flesh'd soldier,-rough and hard of heart,in liberty of bloody hand, shall range with conscience wide as hell; mowing like grass your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants. What is it then to me, if impious war,array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,-do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats enlinked to waste and desolation ? What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause, if your pure maidens fall into the hand of hot and forcing violation ? What rein can hold licentious wickedness when down the hill he holds his fierce career ? We may as bootless spend our vain command upon the enragéd soldiers in their spoil, as send precepts to the Leviathan to come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, take pity of your town and of your people, whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace o'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds of deadly murder, spoil, and villany. If not, why, in a moment, look to see the blind and bloody soldier with foul hand defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters; your fathers taken by the silver beards, and their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls ; your naked infants spitted upon pikes; whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry at Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.

What say you? will you yield, and this avoid ?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd ?

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE SPIRIT IN COMUS-LADY-COMUS

1031 Spi

crushed the sweet poison of misused wine, after the Tuscan mariners transformed, coasting the Tyrrhene shore as the winds listed, on Circe's island fell—who knows not Circe, the daughter of the Sun, whose charméd cup whoever tasted lost his upright shape, and downward fell into a grovelling swine? This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks, with ivy-berries wreathed, and his blithe youth, had by him, ere he parted thence, a son much like his father, but his mother more, whom therefore she brought up and Comus named: who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, roving the Celtic and Iberian fields, at last betakes him to this ominous wood, and, in thick shelter of black shades embowered, excels his mother at her mighty art; offering to every weary traveller his orient liquor in a crystal glass, to quench the drought of Phæbus; which as they taste ---for most do taste through fond intemperate thirst-soon as the potion works, their human countenance, the express resemblance of the gods, is changed into some brutish form of wolf, or bear, or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, all other parts remaining as they were. And they, so perfect is their misery, not once perceive their foul disfigurement, but boast themselves more comely than before: and all their friends and native home forget, to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty. Therefore when any favoured of high Jove chances to pass through this adventurous glade, swift as the sparkle of a glancing star I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy, as now I do : but first I must put off these my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof,

and take the weeds and likeness of a swain,
that to the service of this house belongs,
who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
and hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
and, in this office of his mountain watch,
likeliest and nearest to the present aid
of this occasion. But I hear the tread

of hateful steps, I must be viewless now. 1032 Lady. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,

my best guide now. Methought it was the sound
of riot and ill-managed merriment,
such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe
stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
when, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
in wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
and thank the gods amiss. I should be loath
to meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
of such late wassailers; yet oh! where else
shall I inform my unacquainted feet,
in the blind mazes of this tangled wood ?-
What might this be? A thousand fantasies
begin to throng into my memory,
of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
and airy tongues, that syllable men's names
on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
the virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
by a strong-siding champion, Consciênce.—
Oh! welcome pure-eyed Faith; white-handed Hope,
thou hovering Angel, girt with golden wings,
and thou unblemished form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe
that He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
would send a glistering guardian, if need were,
to keep my life and honour unassailed.-
Was I deceived ? or did a sable cloud
turn forth her silver lining on the night ?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
turn forth her silver lining on the night,
and cast a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

such noise as I can make to be heard furthest
I'll venture;

for

my new-enlivened spirits prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off. 1033 Com. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
and with these raptures moves the vocal air
to testify his hidden residence.
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
of Silence, through the empty vaulted night,
at every fall smoothing the raven-down
of Darkness, till it smiled! I have oft heard
my mother Circe with the Sirens three,
amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades,
culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs,
who, as they sung, would take the prisoned soul
and lap it in Elysium : Scylla wept,
and chid her barking waves into attention,
and fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulled the sense,
and in sweet madness robbed it of itself;
but such a sacred and home-felt delight,
such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her,
and she shall be my queen.—Hail, foreign wonder !
whom certain these rough shades did never breed,
unless the goddess that in rural shrine
dwellest here with Pan or Sylvan, by blest song
forbidding every bleak unkindly fog

to touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood.1034 Lady.

Gentle villager,
what readiest way would bring me to that place?
Com. Due west it rises from this shrubby point.
Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose,

in such a scant allowance of starlight,
would overtask the best land-pilot's art,

without the sure guess of well-practised feet. Com. I know each lane, and every alley green,

dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood,
and every bosky bourn from side to side,
my daily walks and ancient neighbourhood;
and if your stray attendance be yet lodged,
or shroud within these limits, I shall know