Thus song could prevail O'er death and o'er hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious! With Styx nine times round her, But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes: Beside the falls of fountains, Or where Hebrus wanders, Rolling in meanders, Unheard, unknown, He trembles, he glows, Amidst Rhodope's snows: See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies; Hark! Hæmus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries Ah see, he dies! Yet e'en in death Eurydice he sung; Eurydice still trembled on his tongue : Eurydice the woods, Eurydice the floods, Eurydice the rocks and hollow mountains rung. Music the fiercest grief can charm, And Fate's severest rage disarm ; G Our joys below it can improve, This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confined the sound. LOVE AMONG THE ROBERT RUINS. BROWNING. WHERE the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. Now, the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills Intersect and give a name to (else they run Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all, Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, Twelve abreast. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Now, the single little turret that remains By the caper over-rooted, by the gourd While the patching house-leek's head of blossom winks Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul When the king looked, where she looks now, breath Till I come. But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide [less, dumb, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then, When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech In one year they sent a million fighters forth And they built their gods a brazen pillar high Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM. ROBERT SOUTHEY. Ir was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, She saw her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet, In playing there, had found: He came to ask what he had found, That was so large, and smooth, and round. Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by; And then the old man shook his head, ""Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he, "I find them in the garden, For there's many here about; And often when I go to plough, The ploughshare turns them out, For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory!" "Now, tell us what 'twas all about," And little Wilhelmine looks up |