400

401

402

of high Parnassus, down the golden vale,

than the strong joy bursts gushing from my heart, and swells around me to a flood of bliss

Orestes!-oh, my brother!

I

F. HEMANS from Goethe

WALLENSTEIN'S LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF
MAX PICCOLOMINI

SHALL grieve down this blow, of that I'm con

scious:

what does not man grieve down? From the highest,
as from the vilest thing of every day,

he learns to wean himself: for the strong hours
conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost
in him. The bloom is vanished from my life.
For oh, he stood beside me like my youth,
transform'd for me the real to a dream,
clothing the palpable and familiar
with golden exhalations of the dawn.
Whatever fortunes wait my future toils,
the beautiful is vanished-and returns not.

MY

S. T. COLERIDGE from Schiller

REFORMATION OF KING HENRY V

Y father is gone wild into his grave,
for in his tomb lie my affections;
and with his spirit sadly I survive,
to mock the expectation of the world,
to frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
after my seeming. The tide of blood in me
hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now:
now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea,
where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
and flow henceforth in formal majesty.

W. SHAKESPEARE

OF A MIRACULOUS VINE IN EUBOE A

UPON wondrous vine to shoot,

PON Euboea's coast is seen

a

at sunrise 'tis with tendrils green,
at sunset dark with fruit:

at dawn it spreads its leaves around,

at noontide blooms its flower,

and soon with grapes its boughs are crowned,

that ripen every hour:

and now more soft, now purple grown,

the clusters lade the vine,

and when the evening shades draw on,
the peasant quaffs the wine.

J. ANSTICE

403

A PLEA FOR INCONSTANCY

ET us examine all the creatures, read
the book of nature

we shall find

nothing doth still the same; the stars do wander, and have their divers influence; the elements shuffle into innumerable changes;

our constitutions vary; herbs and trees

admit their frosts and summer: and why then
should our desires, that are so nimble and
more subtile than the spirits in our blood,
be such staid things within us, and not share
their natural liberty? Shall we admit a change
in smaller things, and not allow it in

what most of all concerns us?

J. SHIRLEY

404 HEAR now the woes which followed upon these:

405

fallen on the ground her boys were quitting life,

when lo! the hapless mother haps on them,
sees that their wounds are mortal and sobs out—
Children, with all my haste I come too late,
too late to aid'-Then, prone on each in turn,
she wept, she mourned the pangs her heart had known
with noisy grief, while helping at her side
the sister cries-'O ye to whom she looked
to tend her in old age, brothers, who leave
a sister unprotected and yet still
are dear, most dear.'

H

A LOVER IN SOLITUDE

WOW use doth breed a habit in a man!

these shadowy, desert, unfrequented woods

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407

I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
and to the nightingale's complaining notes
tune my distresses and record my woes.
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
and leave no memory of what it was!
Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;
thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain !

G

W. SHAKESPEARE

COURAGE IN DIFFICULTIES

REAT lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
but cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
the cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,

and half our sailors swallowed in the flood?
Yet lives our pilot still: is't meet that he
should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,

with tearful eyes add water to the sea,

and give more strength to that which hath too much;
whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
which industry and courage might have saved?
Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!

I

W. SHAKESPEARE

HAMLET'S MELANCHOLY

HAVE of late-but wherefore I know not-lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,-why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

W. SHAKESPEARE

408 BELISARIus expressing HIS ADMIRATION of

409

410

HIS ADOPTED SONS' IN-BORN ROYALTY

THOU goddess,

thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
in these two princely boys! They are as gentle
as zephyrs, blowing below the violet,

not wagging his sweet head: and yet as rough,
their royal blood enchafed, as the rud'st wind,
that by the top doth take the mountain pine,
and make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder,
that an invisible instinct should frame them
to royalty unlearn'd; honour untaught;
civility not seen from other; valour,

that wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
as if it had been sow'd!

I

W. SHAKESPEARE

DALILA TO SAMPSON

SEE thou art implacable, more deaf

to prayers than winds and seas; yet winds to seas are reconciled at length, and sea to shore:

thy anger, unappeasable, still rages,

eternal tempest, never to be calmed.

Why do I humble thus myself, and, suing

for peace, reap nothing but repulse and hate?
bid go with evil omen, and the brand
of infamy upon my name denounced.
To mix with thy concernments I desist
henceforth, nor too much disapprove my own.

J. MILTON

SAMSON'S EXPOSTULATION WITH DALILA

I'

BEFORE all the daughters of my tribe and of my nation, chose thee from among my enemies, loved thee, as too well thou knewest, too well; unbosomed all my secrets to thee, not out of levity, but overpowered

by thy request, who could deny thee nothing; yet now am judged an enemy. Why then didst thou at first receive me for thy husband, then, as since then, thy country's foe professed? Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave

411

412

413

parents and country; nor was I their subject,
nor under their protection but my own.

J. MILTON

MAX PICCOLOMINI TO HIS FATHER

IFE, life, my father,

L'

my venerable father, life has charms

which we have ne'er experienced. We have been
but voyaging along its barren coasts,

like some poor ever-roaming horde of pirates,
that, crowded in the rank and narrow ship,
house on the wild sea with wild usages,

nor know ought of the main land but the bays
where safeliest they may venture a thieves' landing.
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals
of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,
do we behold of that in our rude voyage.

S. T. COLERIDGE from Schiller

JULIET TO FRIAR LAURENCE

BID me leap, rather than marry Paris, from off the battlements of yonder tower; or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears; or shut me nightly in a charnel-house, o'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones, with reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls; or bid me go into a new-made grave,

and hide me with a dead man in his shroud; things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble; and I will do it without fear or doubt,

to live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

W. SHAKESPEARE

DOUGLAS SOLILOQUY IN THE WOOD

HIS is the place, the centre of the grove.

THIS

Here stands the oak, the monarch of the wood: how sweet and solemn is this midnight scene! the silver moon, unclouded, holds her way thro' skies, where I could count each little star. The fanning west-wind scarcely stirs the leaves; the river, rushing o'er its pebbled bed, imposes silence with a stilly sound.