Chapter IV: Preface (4)

And last with these the king awoke,
And in his chair himself uprear’d, 130
And yawn’d, and rubb’d his face, and spoke,
‘By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you? we have slept, my lords.
My beard has grown into my lap.’
The barons swore, with many words, 135
’Twas but an after-dinner’s nap.

IV.

‘Pardy,’ return’d the king, ‘but still
My joints are something stiff or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
I mention’d half an hour ago?’ 140
The chancellor, sedate and vain,
In courteous words return’d reply:
But dallied with his golden chain,
And, smiling, put the question by.

THE DEPARTURE.

I.

And on her lover’s arm she leant, 145
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim, 150
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow’d him.

II.

‘I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;’
‘O wake for ever, love,’ she hears, 155
‘O love, ’twas such as this and this.’
And o’er them many a sliding star,
And many a merry wind was borne,
And stream’d thro’ many a golden bar,
The twilight melted into morn. 160

III.

‘O eyes long laid in happy sleep!’
‘O happy sleep, that lightly fled!’
‘O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!’
‘O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!’
And o’er them many a flowing range 165
Of vapour buoy’d the crescent-bark,
And, rapt thro’ many a rosy change,
The twilight died into the dark.

IV.

‘A hundred summers! can it be?
And whither goest thou, tell me where?’ 170
‘O seek my father’s court with me,
For there are greater wonders there.’
And o’er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day, 175
Thro’ all the world she follow’d him.

MORAL.

I.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair. 180
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?

II.

But any man that walks the mead, 185
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humours lead,
A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie
In Art like Nature, dearest friend; 190
So ’twere to cramp its use, if I
Should hook it to some useful end.

* * * * *

=‘YOU ASK ME, WHY, THO’ ILL AT EASE.’=

You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.

It is the land that freemen till, 5
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;

A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown, 10
Where freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent:

Where faction seldom gathers head,
But by degrees to fullness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought 15
Hath time and space to work and spread.

Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute; 20

Tho’ Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great—
Tho’ every channel of the State
Should fill and choke with golden sand—

Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, 25
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.

* * * * *

=THE TRAVELLER.=

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,—
Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies, 5
A weary waste expanding to the skies;—
Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell’d fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 10

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, 15
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown’d,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, 20
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not destin’d such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care—
Impell’d, with steps unceasing, to pursue 25
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view,—
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies,—
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own. 30
Ev’n now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And, plac’d on high above the storm’s career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear:
Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide, 35
The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride.

When thus creation’s charms around combine,
Amidst the store should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good which makes each humbler bosom vain? 40
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.
Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor crown’d, 45
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round,
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale,
Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale;
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation’s heir, the world—the world is mine! 50

As some lone miser, visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o’er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, 55
Pleas’d with each good that Heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consign’d, 60
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.

But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 65
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, 70
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam;
His first, best country ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, 75
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even. 80

Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
Still grants her bliss at labour’s earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra’s cliffs as Arno’s shelvy side;
And, though the rocky-crested summits frown, 85
These rocks by custom turn to beds of down.
From art more various are the blessings sent:
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other’s power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest. 90
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Hence every state, to one lov’d blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone;
Each to the favourite happiness attends, 95
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies. 100
Here for a while, my proper cares resign’d,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.

Far to the right, where Apennine ascends, 105
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain’s side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple’s mouldering tops between
With venerable grandeur mark the scene. 110

Could nature’s bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest.
Whatever fruits in different climes are found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear, 115
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter’s toil; 120
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all this nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear, 125
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew. 130
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, not far remov’d the date,
When commerce proudly flourished through the state.
At her command the palace learnt to rise, 135
Again the long-fallen column sought the skies;
The canvas glow’d beyond ev’n nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem’d with human form;
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores display’d her sail; 140
While nought remain’d of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann’d, and lords without a slave:
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied 145
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind
An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array’d,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade; 150
Processions form’d for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil’d,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, represt by long control, 155
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind.
As in those domes where Cæsars once bore sway,
Defac’d by time and tottering in decay, 160
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey 165
Where rougher climes a nobler race display;
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword; 170
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, 175
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed; 180
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful, at morn, he wakes from short repose, 185
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day. 190
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children’s looks, that brighten at the blaze,
While his lov’d partner, boastful of her hoard, 195
Displays her cleanly platter on the board;
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; 200
And ev’n those hills that round his mansion rise
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms:
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 205
Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast,
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind’s roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assign’d:
Their wants but few, their wishes all confin’d. 210
Yet let them only share the praises due;
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies, 215
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame: 220
Their level life is but a smouldering fire,
Unquench’d by want, unfann’d by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, 225
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow;
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low.
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son,
Unalter’d, unimprov’d, the manners run; 230
And love’s and friendship’s finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o’er the mountain’s breast
May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play 235
Through life’s more cultur’d walks, and charm the way,—
These, far dispers’d, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain. 240
Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas’d with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew, 245
And freshen’d from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
But mock’d all tune, and marr’d the dancer’s skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 250
Alike all ages: dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze;
And the gay grandsire, skill’d in gestic lore,
Has frisk’d beneath the burthen of threescore.

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display; 255
Thus idly busy rolls their world away.
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here:
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains, 260
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise.
They please, are pleas’d; they give to get esteem, 265
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov’d, or warmly sought
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought: 270
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace, 275
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year:
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. 280

To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosom’d in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, 285
Lift the tall rampire’s artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore. 290
While the pent ocean, rising o’er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile:
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom’d vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,— 295
A new creation rescued from his reign.

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain. 300
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here display’d. Their much lov’d wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;
But, view them closer, craft and fraud appear; 305
Even liberty itself is bartered here.
At gold’s superior charms all freedom flies;
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys.
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonorable graves, 310
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old—
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow; 315
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!

Fir’d at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring,
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than fam’d Hydaspes glide. 320
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation’s mildest charms are there combin’d:
Extremes are only in the master’s mind!
Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her state, 325
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion’d, fresh from Nature’s hand, 330
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin’d right, above control;
While e’en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur’d here, 335
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;
Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy;
But, foster’d e’en by freedom, ills annoy.
That independence Britons prize too high
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie; 340
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown.
Here, by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell’d;
Ferments arise, imprison’d factions roar, 345
Represt ambition struggles round her shore;
Till, over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature’s ties decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway, 350
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms, 355
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil’d and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour’d die. 360

Yet think not, thus when Freedom’s ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great:
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire;
And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 365
The rabble’s rage, and tyrant’s angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By proud contempt, or favour’s fostering sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure!
I only would repress them to secure: 370
For just experience tells in every soil,
That those who think must govern those who toil;
And all that Freedom’s highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportion’d loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportioned grow, 375
Its double weight must ruin all below.

Oh, then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms: 380
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, 385
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes where savage nations roam,
Pillag’d from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation, start,
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; 390
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power,
And thus polluting honour in its source, 395
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain’s peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang’d for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste, 400
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scatter’d hamlets rose,
In barren, solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen, at pleasure’s lordly call, 405
The smiling, long frequented village fall?
Behold the duteous son, the sire decay’d,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc’d from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main; 410
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?

Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways,
Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 415
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go, 420
Casts a long look where England’s glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I stray’d from pleasure and repose, 425
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure? 430
Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, 435
Luke’s iron crown, and Damiens’ bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.

* * * * *

=HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA.=

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the north-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;
“Here and here did England help me—how can I help England?”—say,
5
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

* * * * *

=THE PATRIOT.=

AN OLD STORY.

I.

It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad,
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day! 5

II.

The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries,
Had I said, “Good folk, mere noise repels—
But give me your sun from yonder skies!”
They had answered, “And afterward, what else?” 10

III.

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,
To give it my loving friends to keep.
Nought man could do have I left undone,
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run. 15

IV.

There’s nobody on the house-tops now—
Just a palsied few at the windows set—
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles’ Gate—or, better yet,
By the very scaffold’s foot, I trow. 20

V.

I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind,
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year’s misdeeds. 25

VI.

Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead;
“Thou, paid by the world,—what dost thou owe
Me?” God might question: now instead
’Tis God shall repay! I am safer so. 30

* * * * *

=LOVE AMONG THE RUINS.=

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop 5
As they crop—
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince
Ages since 10
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 15
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one,)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires 20
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 25
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone— 30
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold 35
Bought and sold.

Now,—the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored, 40
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks
Through the chinks—
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all around, the chariots traced 45
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave 50
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away—
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 55
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come. 60

But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades’
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then, 65
All the men!
When I do come she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face, 70
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 75
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—
Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns 80
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.

* * * * *

=THE ISLES OF GREECE.=

I.

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,—
Where Delos rose and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet, 5
But all, except their sun, is set.

II.

The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute 10
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”

III.

The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone, 15
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

IV.

A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis; 20
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set, where were they?

V.

And where are they? and where art thou 25
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine? 30

VI.

’Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link’d among a fetter’d race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here? 35
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.

VII.

Must _we_ but weep o’er days more blest?
Must _we_ but blush?—Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead! 40
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!

VIII.

What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;—the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall, 45
And answer, “Let one living head,
But one arise—we come, we come!”
’Tis but the living who are dumb.

IX.

In vain—in vain; strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine! 50
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call—
How answers each bold Bacchanal!

X.

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, 55
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave? 60

XI.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
He served—but served Polycrates—
A tyrant; but our masters then 65
Were still, at least, our countrymen.

XII.

The tyrant of the Cheronese
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
_That_ tyrant was Miltiades!
Oh! that the present hour would lend 70
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.

XIII.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore
Exists the remnant of a line 75
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

XIV.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks—
They have a king who buys and sells; 80
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.

XV.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! 85
Our virgins dance beneath the shade—
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
Mine own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 90

XVI.

Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine— 95
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

* * * * *

=“AS SHIPS, BECALMED AT EVE.”=

As ships, becalm’d at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, 5
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:

E’en so—but why the tale reveal
Of those, whom year by year unchanged, 10
Brief absence join’d anew to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were fill’d,
And onward each rejoicing steer’d—
Ah, neither blame, for neither will’d, 15
Or wist, what first with dawn appear’d!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides
To that, and your own selves, be true. 20

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne’er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought, 25
One purpose hold where’er they fare,—
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there.

* * * * *

=THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.=

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 5
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell, 10
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil 15
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door, 20
Stretched in his last-found home and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 25
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul.
As the swift seasons roll! 30
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! 35

* * * * *

=SELECTIONS FOR MEMORIZATION=

_Prescribed by the Department of Education, in the Province of Ontario._

(Extract from Circular 58).

=Junior Public School Diploma.=

_The High School Reader._

The Knights’ Chorus, p. 70; The Evening Wind, p. 93; The Return of the Swallows, p. 111; The Eternal Goodness, p. 118; Sir Galahad, p. 182; On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, p. 189; A Wood Lyric, p. 191.

_Narrative and Lyric Poems._

_Gray_: Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard; _Mrs. Browning_: My Kate; _Tennyson_: Morte d’Arthur, ll. 113-142, “Then spoke King Arthur breathing heavily. . . so flashed and fell the brand Excalibur,” ll. 240-255, “The old order changeth. . . about the feet of God.”

=Senior Public School Diploma, Senior High School Entrance,=
=and Entrance into the Model Schools.=

_Narrative and Lyric Poems._

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea; “As Ships, Becalm’d—”; The Chambered Nautilus; “You Ask me, Why—”; Enid’s song, “Turn, Fortune, turn thy Wheel”—four stanzas; Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, Parts VII and VIII; The Traveller, ll. 63-98, “But where to find. . . peculiar pain” and ll. 423-438, “Vain, very vain. . . all our own.”

_The Merchant of Venice._

Act I, Sc. 1, ll. 79-99. _Gratiano_: Let me play . . . their brothers
fools.