385

386

387

But why more hideous than your loathéd selves
gather ye up in legions from the deep?

CON

ATE PROLOGUS

P. B. SHELLEY

“ONDEMNED soul, Atê, from lowest hell
and deadly rivers of th' infernal Jove,
where bloodless ghosts in pains of endless date
fill ruthless ears with never-ceasing cries,
behold, I come in place, and bring beside
the bane of Troy: behold, the fatal fruit
raught from the golden tree of Proserpine.
Proud Troy must fall, so bid the gods above,
and stately Ilium's lofty towers be razed
by conquering hands of the victorious foe.

QUEEN GUinevere's remorse

ONE,-my lord!

GON

G. PEELE

gone thro' my sin to slay and to be slain! and he forgave me, and I could not speak.

Farewell? I should have answered his farewell.
His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King,
my own true lord! how dare I call him mine?
The shadow of another cleaves to me,
and makes me one pollution: he, the King
called me polluted: shall I kill myself?
what help in that? I cannot kill my sin,
if soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame ;
no, nor by living can I live it down.

IPHIGENIA TO ARKAS

A. TENNYSON

REELY to breathe alone is not to live.
Say, is it life, within this holy fane,
like a poor ghost around its sepulcre
to linger out my days? Or call you that
a life of conscious happiness and joy,
when every hour, dream'd listlessly away,
leads to those dark and melancholy days,
which the sad troop of the departed spend
in self-forgetfulness on Lethe's shore?
a useless life is but an early death;
this, woman's lot, is eminently mine.

A. SWANWICK from Goethe

388 PALAMON to arcite in prison at athens

OH, cousin Arcitees now? where is our noble

country?

where are our friends and kindreds? Never more
must we behold those comforts: never more
shall we two exercise, like twins of Honour,
our arms again, and feel our fiery horses

like proud seas under us! our good swords now,
(better the red-eyed god of war ne'er ware)
ravish'd our sides, like age, must run to rust,
and deck the temples of those gods that hate us;
these hands shall never draw 'em out like lightning,
to blast whole armies, more!

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

389

'TIS

POLAND

IS done! and Power, brute Power, hath now usurped

the throne of justice.

Poland is no more,

her proud existence, perhaps her very name,
rased from the list of nations. Europe saw
and interposed not. May she never rue
the strong example of successful guilt.

Farewell, sir. Should'st thou see my son, salute
him with a dying mother's blessing: say
that next to leaving him and Poland happy,
the dearest consolation was to know

that he had done his duty.

390

R. FERRARS

ANCIENT GOVERNMENTS

HERE was a time, so ancient records tell,
there were communities, scarce known by name

in these degenerate days, but once far-famed,

when liberty and justice, hand-in-hand,

ordered the common weal; where great men grew
up to their natural eminence, and none,

saving the wise, just, eloquent, were great:
where power was of God's gift, to whom he gave
supremacy of merit, the sole means

391

392

393

and broad highway to power, that ever then
was meritoriously administered.

H'

H. TAYLOR

TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF ZIPHARES

E comes, and with a port as proud, as if he had subdued the spacious world: and all Sinope's streets are filled with such a glut of people, you would think some God had conquered in their cause, and they thus ranked, that he might make his entrance on their heads! while from the scaffolds, windows, tops of houses, are cast such gaudy showers of garlands down, that even the crowd appear like conquerors, and the whole city seems like one vast meadow, set all with flowers, as a clear heaven with stars.

THA

THE VISION OF OBERON

N. LEE

HAT very time I saw (but thou couldst not) flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took

at a fair vestal thronéd by the west,

and loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
but I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
and the imperial votaress passed on,

in maiden meditation, fancy-free.

W. SHAKESPEARE

WRITTEN IN HIS LIBRARY

MY days among the dead are passed;

around me I behold,

where'er these casual eyes are cast,
the mighty minds of old:

my never-failing friends are they,
with whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
and seek relief in woe;

and then I understand and feel,
how much to them I owe.

R. SOUTHEY

394

R.

DUKE OF YORK'S DEATH

RICHARD-MESSENGER-EDWARD

BUT

UT what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue? M. Ah, one that was a woeful looker on.

E.

O, speak no more! for I have heard too much. R. Say how he died, for I will hear it all. M. Environéd he was with many foes,

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396

and stood against them as the hope of Troy ;
but Hercules himself must yield to odds;
and many strokes, though with a little axe,
hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.
W. SHAKESPEARE

SUPREME FORTUNE FALLS SOONEST

YET

ET kings are gods, and make the proudest stoop:
yea, but themselves are still pursued with hate:
and men were made to mount and then to droop.
Such chances wait upon uncertain fate,

that where she kisseth once, she quelleth twice;
then whoso lives content is happy, wise.
What motion moveth this philosophy?
oh, Sylla, see the ocean ebbs and floats,
the spring-time wanes when winter draweth nigh:
I, these are true and most assuréd notes.
Inconstant chance such tickle turns has lent,
as whoso fears no fall, must seek content.

I

ACERONIA TO AGRIPPINA

T. LODGE

WELL remember too (for I was present) when in a secret and dead hour of night, due sacrifice performed with barbarous rites of muttered charms and solemn invocation, you made the Magi call the dreadful powers, that read futurity, to know the fate impending o'er your son: their answer was, 'If the son reign, the mother perishes.' 'Perish,' you cried, 'the mother! reign the son!' He reigns, the rest is heaven's; who oft has bade, even when its will seemed wrote in lines of blood, th' unthought event disclose a whiter meaning.

T. GRAY

HIS worth is great; valiant he is and temperate;

and one that never thinks his life his own

if his friend need it. When he was a boy,

as oft as I return'd, (as, without boast,

I brought home conquest), he would gaze upon me
and view me round, to find in what one limb
the virtue lay to do those things he heard ;
then would he wish to see my sword, and feel
the quickness of the edge, and in his hand
weigh it he oft would make me smile at this.
His youth did promise much, and his ripe years
will see it all performed.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

398 HENRY BEAUFORT'S REPLY TO THE CHARGES

399

IF

OF THE DUKE OF GLOSTER

F I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse, as he will have me, how am I so poor? or how haps it I seek not to advance or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling? And for dissension, who preferreth peace more than I do, except I be provoked? No, my good lords, it is not that offends; it is not that that hath incensed the duke: it is, because no one should sway but he; no one but he should be about the king; and that engenders thunder in his breast, and makes him roar these accusations forth. W. SHAKESPEARE

EXCLAMATIONS OF IPHIGENIA ON SEEING

OH

HER BROTHER

how my heart,

H hear me, look upon me!
after long desolation, now unfolds
unto this new delight, to kiss thy head,

thou dearest, dearest one of all on earth,

to clasp thee with my arms, which were but thrown
on the void winds before! Oh give me way,
give my soul's rapture way! the eternal fount
leaps not more brightly forth from cliff to cliff