Imatges de pàgina
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And while my youthful peers, before my eyes, (Each Hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprize

By martial sports,

-or, seated in the tent,

Chieftains and kings in council were detained;
What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

The wished-for wind was given :-I then revolved
The oracle, upon the silent sea;

And, if no worthier led the

way, resolved

That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be
The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,--
Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang
When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife!
On thee too fondly did my memory hang,

And on the joys we shared in mortal life, -
The paths which we had trod-these fountains--flowers;
My new-planned Cities, and unfinished Towers.

But should suspense permit the Foe to cry,
"Behold they tremble! — haughty their array,

Yet of their number no one dares to die?".

In soul I swept the indignity away :

Old frailties then recurred: - but lofty thought,

In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak
In reason, in self-government too slow;

I counsel thee by fortitude to seek

Our blest re-union in the shades below.

The invisible world with thee hath sympathized;
Be thy affections raised and solemnized.

Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
Towards a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end:
For this the passion to excess was driven --
That self might be annulled; her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes re-appears!
Round the dear Shade she would have clung-'tis vain
The hours are past—too brief had they been years;
And him no mortal effort can detain:

Swift, tow'rd the realms that know not earthly day,
He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace floor a lifeless corse she lay.

By no weak pity might the Gods be moved;
She who thus perished not without the crime
Of Lovers that in Reason's spite have loved,
Was doomed to wander in a grosser clime,
Apart from happy Ghosts-that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.

:

Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes. - Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight !*

* For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. 16. cap. 44.; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus (page 115.) see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Virgil places the Shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy Lovers,

His Laodamia

It comes.

XXVI.

HER eyes are wild, her head is bare, The sun has burnt her coal-black hair; Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,

And she came far from over the main.

She has a Baby on her arm,

Or else she were alone;

And underneath the hay-stack warm,

And on the green-wood stone,

She talked and the woods among,

sung

And it was in the English tongue.

"Sweet Babe! they say that I am mad,

But nay, my heart is far toò glad;

And I am happy when I sing

Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely Baby, do not fear!

I

pray thee have no fear of me,

But, safe as in a cradle, here,
My lovely Baby! thou shalt be:

To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe.

A fire was once within my brain ;
And in my head a dull, dull pain;
And fiendish faces one, two, three,
Hung at my breast, and pulled at me.
But then there came a sight of joy :
It came at once to do me good;
I waked, and saw my little Boy,
My little Boy of flesh and blood;
Oh joy for me that sight to see!
For he was here, and only he.

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