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1265

1266

HERE re-assembling we shall see emerge

from the bright ocean at our feet an Earth
more fresh, more verdant than the last, with fruits
self-springing and a seed of man preserved,
who then shall live in peace as now in war.
But we in Heaven shall find again with joy
the ruined palaces of Odin, seats

familiar, halls where we have supped of old;
re-enter them with wonder, never fill

our eyes with gazing and re-build with tears.
And we shall tread once more the well-known plain
of Ida, and among the grass shall find

the golden dice with which we played of yore;
and that will bring to mind the former life
and pastime of the gods, the wise discourse
of Odin, the delights of other days.

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ture years shall pass away. Another race shall arise. The people are like the waves of ocean: like the leaves of woody Morven, they pass away in the rustling blast, and other leaves lift their green heads on high. Did thy beauty last, O Ryno? stood the strength of car-borne Oscar? Fingal himself departed. The halls of his fathers forgot his steps. Shalt thou then remain, thou aged bard, when the mighty have failed? But my fame shall remain, and grow like the oak of Morven; which lifts its broad head to the storm, and rejoices in the course of the wind.

1267

J. MACPHERSON

GUINEVERE AFTER THE PARTING OF KING

ARTHUR

O the

So she did not see the fangel's, but she saw,

wet with the mists and smitten by the lights,
the Dragon of the great Pendragonship
blaze, making all the night a steam of fire,
and even then he turned; and more and more

1268

the moony vapour rolling round the king,
who seemed the phantom of a Giant in it,
enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray
and grayer, till himself became as mist
before her, moving ghostlike to his doom.
Then she stretch'd out her arms and cried aloud,
Oh, Arthur!' then her voice brake suddenly,
then as a stream that spouting from a cliff
fails in mid air, but gathering at the base
re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale--
went on in passionate utterance.

COME

IDYLL

A. TENNYSON

'OME down, o maid, from yonder mountain height;
for Love is of the valley, come thou down

and find him; by the happy threshold, he,
or hand in hand with plenty in the maize,
or red with spirted purple of the vats,
or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
with Death and Morning on the Silver Horns,
nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
that huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
to roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
but follow; let the torrent dance thee down
to find him in the valley; let the wild
lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
the monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
that like a broken purpose waste in air:

so waste not thou; but come: for all the vales
await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
arise to thee; the children call, and I

thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound;
sweeter thy voice but every sound is sweet;
myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
the moan of doves in immemorial elms
and murmuring of innumerable bees.'

1269 So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay listening; then looked. Pale was the perfect face; the bosom with long sighs laboured; and meek seemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes,

1270

1271

and the voice trembled and the hand. She said
brokenly, that she knew it, she had failed.
in sweet humility; had failed in all;
that all her labour was but as a block
left in the quarry; but she still were loth,
she still were loth to yield herself to one,
that wholly scorned to help their equal rights
against the sons of men, and barbarous laws.
She prayed me not to judge their cause from her
that wronged it, sought far less for truth than power
in knowledge: something wild within her breast
a greater than all knowledge, beat her down.

THE DEATH OF PAN

A. TENNYSON

HOW, shepherd, is it by fame's trumpet said,

that Pan the best of all the Gods is dead?
whom oft w' adored, and whom, because we knew
as good as they, we thought him as immortal too.
'Tis strange; but omens now I find are true.
In yonder copse a shady Oak there stood,
stately, well rooted, and itself a wood;

her branches o'er the inferior trees were spread,
who all adored her as their sovereign head:
hither, when heated by the guide of day,

while their young wanton goats did skip and play,-
hither the swains would constantly repair,

here sing, and in the ample shade drink fresher air.
This tree, when I my goats to pasture drove,
while all was clear above, and still, throughout the
grove,

struck by some secret force, fall down I saw;
the wood-nymphs all were seized with wonder, grief,
and awe.

ON

HORATIUS' CHALLENGE.

N Astur's throat Horatius
right firmly pressed his heel

and thrice and four times tugged amain,
ere he wrenched out the steel.
'And see,' he cried, 'the welcome,
fair guests, that waits you here!
What noble Lucumo comes next

to taste our Roman cheer?

J. NORRIS

But at his haughty challenge

a sullen murmur ran,

mingled of wrath and shame and dread

along that glittering van.

There lacked not men of prowess,

nor men of lordly race;

for all Etruria's noblest

were round the fatal place.

But all Etruria's noblest

felt their hearts sick to see
on the earth the bloody corpses,
in the path the dauntless Three:
and, from the ghastly entrance

where those bold Romans stood,
all shrank, like boys who unaware,
ranging the woods to start a hare,
come to the mouth of the dark lair
where, growling low, a fierce old bear
lies amidst bones and blood.

T. B. MACAULAY

1272

TH

PREPARATION FOR THE TOURNAMENT

HEN might you hear each valiant knight,
to page and squire that cried,

'Bring my armour bright, and my courser wight!

'tis not each day that a warrior's might

may win a royal bride.'

Their cloaks and caps of maintenance

in haste aside they fling;

the helmets glance, and gleams the lance,
and the steel-weaved hauberks ring.

Small care had they of their peaceful array,
they might gather it that wolde;

for brake and bramble glittered gay
with pearls and cloth of gold.

Within trumpet-sound of the Table Round

were fifty champions free,

and they all arise to fight that prize,

they all arise, but three.

Nor love's fond troth, nor wedlock's oath,
one gallant could withhold,

for priests will allow of a broken vow,

for penance or for gold.

SIR W. SCOTT

1273 RANDOLPH MURRAY'S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE

OF FLODDEN WITHIN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER

'FEW his wearied host withdrew;

EW there were when Surrey halted,

none but dying men around me,

when the English trumpet blew.
Then I stooped, and took the banner,
as ye see it, from his breast,
and I closed our hero's eyelids
and I left him to his rest.

In the mountains growled the thunder,
as I leaped the woeful wall,
and the heavy clouds were settling
over Flodden, like a pall.'

So he ended. And the others
cared not any answer then;
sitting silent, dumb with sorrow,

sitting anguish-struck, like men
who have seen the roaring torrent
sweep their happy homes away,
and yet linger by the margin,
staring idly on the spray.

1274

W. E. AYTOUN

JOAN OF ARC

HIGH on her stately steed the martial maid

rode foremost of the war, her burnished arms shone like the brook that o'er its pebbled course runs glittering gaily to the noontide sun. The foaming courser, of her guiding hand impatient, smote the earth, and tossed his mane, and reared aloft with many a forward bound, then answered to the rein with such a step as in submission he were proud to shew his spirit unsubdued. Slow on the air

waved the white plumes that shadow'd o'er her helm. E'en such, so fair, so terrible in arms,

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