siderations of interest, not on aught that time can destroy: now indeed Time is defeated; not by offspring, not by verse, but by that which is alone free from time and fortune, by Love. Yetthus the series closes-let us not be lifted up above measure; however fair life and love may be, there is at last, for thee even as for me, the quietus of the grave. Of the exquisite songs scattered through Shakespeare's plays it is almost an impertinence to speak. If they do not make their own way, like the notes in the wildwood, no words will open the dull ear to take them in. There is little song in the historical dramas; how should there be much amid the debates of the council-chamber, the clash of swords, the tug of rival interests, the plotting of courtiers, the ambitious hypocrisies of priests? To hear dainty snatches set to some clear-hearted tune-' Green Sleeves' perhaps or 'Light o' love'-we must haunt the palace of the enamoured Duke of Illyria, or wander under green boughs in Arden, or stray along the yellow sands of the enchanted island, or lurk behind the hedge while light-footed and lightfingered Autolycus sets the country air a-ringing with his sprightly tirra-lirra. In the tragedies Shakespeare has made use of song -his own or another's-always with deliberate forethought, always with the inevitable rightness of genius, to make the pity more rare and of a finer edge, to touch the skirts of darkness with a pathetic gleam, or to mingle some keen irony with the transitory triumph of life. We remember the wild and bitter gaiety, hiding so deep a sorrow, of Lear's poor boy quavering out weak notes across the tempest; thought and affliction turned to prettiness in the distracted Ophelia's singing; the rough ditty keeping time to strokes of the mattock as it tosses out the earth which is to lie on Ophelia's breast; the high-pitched joviality of honest Iago 'And let me the canakin clink, clink'; the volleying chorus, 'Cup us till the world go round,' shouted in Pompey's galley, while Menes stands by ready to fall to the triumvirs' throats; the old song of willow sung by maid Barbara when Desdemona was a girl, and coming back to her on that night when a sad wife she goes bedward with eyes ripe for weeping, and with a heart still meek and innocent as the heart of a little child. But to hear songs, which 'dally with the innocence of love like the old age,' one should be silent. EDWARD DOWDEN. POEMS. [From Venus and Adonis.] O, what a sight it was, wistly to view Now was she just before him as he sat, O, what a war of looks was then between them! And all this dumb play had his acts made plain Full gently now she takes him by the hand, A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow, Or ivory in an alabaster band; So white a friend engirts so white a foe: This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling, Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing 'Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this, But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar. O, be advised! thou know'st not what it is With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore, Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still, 'On his bow-back he hath a battle set Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes; His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret ; Being moved, he strikes whate'er is in his way, 'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd, The thorny brambles and embracing bushes, But having thee at vantage,-wondrous dread! 'O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still; They that thrive well take counsel of their friends. 'But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me; Uncouple at the timorous flying hare, Or at the fox which lives by subtlety, Or at the roe which no encounter dare: Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs, And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy hounds. 'And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare, Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles How he outruns the wind and with what care He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles: The many musets through the which he goes Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes. 'Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell, And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer: 'For there his smell with others being mingled, Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies, 'By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill, And now his grief may be compared well 'Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch And being low never relieved by any.' With this, he breaketh from the sweet embrace, Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky, Which after him she darts, as one on shore Till the wild waves will have him seen no more, Whereat amazed, as one that unaware And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans, Passion on passion deeply is redoubled: 'Ay me! she cries, and twenty times 'Woe, woe!' And twenty echoes twenty times cry so. She looks upon his lips, and they are pale ; As if they heard the woeful words she told; Where, lo, two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lics; Two glasses, where herself herself beheld, A thousand times, and now no more reflect; And every beauty robb'd of his effect: 'Wonder of time,' quoth she, 'this is my spite, That, thou being dead, the day should yet be light. 'Since thou art dead, lo, here I prophesy : That all love's pleasure shall not match his woc. 'It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud, |