1116

THE BRITONS' SONG OF TRIUMPH

‘OME, if you dare, our trumpets sound;

COME

come, if you dare, the foes rebound:

we come, we come, we come, we come,

says the double, double, double beat of the thundering drum. Now they charge on amain,

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now they rally again;

the gods from above the mad labour behold,
and pity mankind, that will perish for gold.

SE

J. DRYDEN

SONG IN ALBION AND ALBANIUS

EE the god of seas attend thee,
nymphs divine, a beauteous train;
all the calmer gales befriend thee
in thy passage o'er the main:
every maid her locks is binding,
every Triton's horn is winding,
welcome to the watery plain.

MATERNAL LOVE

H! little doth the young one dream

J. DRYDEN

A when full of play and childish cares,

what power is in his wildest scream
heard by his mother unawares !
He knows it not, he cannot guess;
years to a mother bring distress;
but do not make her love the less.

WAR

W. WORDSWORTH

WAR, if thou wert subject but to death, and by desert might'st fall to Phlegethon, the torment that Ixion suffereth,

or his whose soul the vulture seizeth on,
were all too little to reward thy wrath;

nor all the plagues that fiery Pluto hath
the most outrageous sinners laid upon.

T. KYD

AMBITION

DESIRE that is of things out

see what travaile it procureth,

and how much the minde endureth,

to gaine what yet it gaineth not:
for never was it paide

the charge defraide

According to the price of thought.

S. DANIEL

1121

OH

PLEASURE

H righteous doom, that they who make
pleasure their only end,

ordering the whole life for its sake,

miss that whereto they tend:
while they who bid stern duty lead,
content to follow, they,

of duty only taking heed,
find pleasure by the way.

R. C. TRENCH

1122 EARTH'S increase and foison plenty;

1123

barns and garners never empty;

vines with clustering bunches growing;
plants, with goodly burden bowing;
spring come to you, at the farthest,
in the very end of harvest !

scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres' blessing so is on you.

H

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE ENTRANCE OF NILUS

ERE comes the agéd river now,
with garlands of great pearl his brow

begirt and rounded. In his flow

all things take life and all things grow:
a thousand wealthy treasures still,

to do him service at his will,
follow his rising flood, and pour
perpetual blessings in our store.

Now the plants and flowers shall spring
and the merry ploughman sing.

F. S. III

29

1124

Let the damsels sing him in,
sing aloud, that he may rise:
then holy feasts and hours begin,
and each hand bring a sacrifice.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

TO NIGHT

HOLY Night! from thee I learn to bear,
what man has borne before!

Thou lay'st thy finger on the lips of Care,
and they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
descend with broad-wing'd flight,

the welcome, the thrice-pray'd for, the most fair,
the best-belovéd Night,

H. W. LONGFELLOW

1125

JUDICIAL PURITY

HE, who the sword of heaven will bear,

should be as holy as severe;

pattern in himself to know,
grace to stand, and virtue go;
more nor less to others paying,
than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him, whose cruel striking
kills for faults of his own liking!

W. SHAKESPEARE

1126

DEATH AND SLEEP

HOW wonderful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!

one, pale as yonder waning moon,
with lips of lurid blue;

the other, rosy as the morn
when throned on ocean's wave
it blushes o'er the world:

yet both so passing wonderful!

P. B. SHELLEY

FEN Dat they canst inflict I did the do

IEND, I defy thee! with a calm fixed mind,

foul Tyrant both of Gods and Human-kind,
one only being shalt thou not subdue.
Rain then thy plagues upon me here,
ghastly disease and frenzying fear:
and let alternate frost and fire

eat into me and be thine ire

lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms
of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.
1129 Ay, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent.
O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power,
and my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent
to blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower.
Let thy malignant spirit move

in darkness over those I love:
on me and mine I imprecate
the utmost torture of thy hate;

and thus devote to sleepless agony

this undeclining head while thou must reign on high.

1130

P. B. SHELLEY

DONE

HERO'S EPITAPH

ONE to death by slanderous tongues
was the Hero that here lies;
death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
gives her fame which never dies:

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so the life that died with shame
lives in death with glorious fame.
Hang thou there upon the tomb,
praising her when I am dumb.

FE

BELVIDERE TO SILVIO

W. SHAKESPEARE

EAR not, fear not: I'll be nigh:
cast thy trouble on my back:
art nor cunning shall not lack
to preserve thee, still to keep
what thy envious foemen seek.
Go boldly home, and let thy mind
no distrustful crosses find;

all shall happen for the best:

souls walk through sorrows that are blest.

MERCURY TO PROMETHEUS

J. FLETCHER

EAR not: 'tis but some passing spasm,

FEAR Titan is unvanquished still.

But see, where through the azure chasm
of yon forked and snowy hill
trampling the slant winds on high

with golden-sandalled feet, that glow
under plumes of purple dye,
like rose-ensanguined ivory,
a Shape comes now,

stretching on high from his right hand
a serpent-cinctured wand.

QUEEN GUINEVERE

OW on some twisted ivy-net,

Now

in mosses mixt with violet

P. B. SHELLEY

her cream-white mule his pastern set:

and fleeter now she skimm'd the plains than she whose elfin prancer springs

by night to eery warblings,

when all the glimmering moorland rings
with jingling bridle-reins.

A. TENNYSON