And if thou meet an enemy, Whate'er by other's need is claimed Or any good whereby we live,- Strive that thy works prove equal: lest Unto the man of yearning thought How callous seems beyond revoke Let lore of all Theology Be to thy soul what it can be: But know, the Power that fashions man To God at best, to Chance at worst, Didst ever say, "Lo, I forget?" Such thought was to remember yet. As in a gravegarth, count to see The monuments of memory. Thought-wandering, unto nought that met them there, But to the unfettered irreversible goal. This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud Of his soul writ and limned; this other one, His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone, Ere yet their food might be that Bread alone, The words now home-speech of the mouth of God. III. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE HIS Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove The father-songster plies the hour-long quest,) To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest; But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above Their callow fledgling progeny still hove With tented roof of wings and fostering breast Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human Love. Yet ah! Like desert pools that show the stars Once in long leagues, -even such the scarce-snatched hours Which deepening pain left to his lord liest powers:— Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars. Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies Own them, a beacon to our centuries. Weary with labor spurned and love found vain, In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep. O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse, Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er, Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ But rumor'd in water, while the fame of it Along Time's flood goes echoing ever more. V. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (INSCRIPTION FOR THE COUCH, STILL PRESERVED, ON WHICH HE PASSED THE LAST NIGHT OF HIS LIFE.) "TWIXT those twin worlds,-the world of Sleep, which gave No dream to warm,-the tidal world of Death, Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth, Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave. Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave Only the sea?--or did man's deed of hell Engulf his bark 'mid mists impenetrable?. No eye discerned, nor any power might save. When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief ageless youth? Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?— Hush! All-Hail, Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in Truth's bright sphere Art first of praisers, being most praised here. 1881. THE KING'S TRAGEDY JAMES I OF SCOTS. --20TH FEBRUARY, 1437. I CATHERINE am a Douglas born, And Kate Barlass they've called me now Through all the days of his gallant youth The princely James was pent, By his friends at first and then by his foes, In long imprisonment. For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir, With the royal mortal blood. I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care, His youth for long years immured. Yet in all things meet for a kingly man Himself did he approve; And the nightingale through his prisonwall Taught him both lore and love. For once, when the bird's song drew him close To the opened window-pane, And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note, Gave yet to the English tongue. She was a lady of royal blood; And when, past sorrow and teen, He stood where still through his crown At Scone were the happy lovers crowned, A heart-wed King and Queen. But the bird may fall from the bough of youth, And song be turned to moan, And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate, When the tempest-waves of a troubled State Are beating against a throne. Yet well they loved; and the god of Love, From the days when first she rode abroad I Catherine Douglas won the trust Of my mistress, sweet Queen Jane. And oft she sighed, "To be born a And oft along the way Years waned,-the loving and toiling years: Till England's wrong renewed Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown, To the open field of feud. "T was when the King and his host were met At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold,. The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp With a tale of dread to be told. And she showed him a secret letter writ "And it may be here or it may be there, arms And guard your royal head.” Quoth he, ""T is the fifteenth day of the siege, And the castle 's nigh to yield." "O face your foes on your throne," she cried, "And show the power you wield; And under your Scottish people's love You shall sit as under your shield." At the fair Queen's side I stood that day When he bade them raise the siege, And back to his Court he sped to know How the lords would meet their Liege. But when he summoned his Parliament, The louring brows hung round, Like clouds that circle the mountainhead Ere the first low thunders sound. For he had tamed the nobles' lust And curbed their power and pride, And reached out an arm to right the poor Through Scotland far and wide; And many a lordly wrong-doer By the headsman's axe had died. 'T was then upspoke Sir Robert Græme, The bold o'ermastering man: "O King, in the name of your Three Estates I set you under their ban! For, as your lords made oath to you Of service and fealty, Even in likewise you pledged your oath Their faithful sire to be : "Yet all we here that are nobly sprung Have mourned dear kith and kin Since first for the Scottish Barons' curse Did your bloody rule begin." With that he laid his hands on his King: Is this not so, my lords?" But of all who had sworn to league with him Not one spake back to his words. Quoth the King:-" Thou speak'st but for one Estate. Nor doth it avow thy gage. Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!" The Græme fired dark with rage:"Who works for lesser men than himself, He earns but a witless wage!" But soon from the dungeon where he lay He won by privy plots, And forth he fled with a price on his head To the country of the Wild Scots. And word there came from Sir Robert Græme To the King at Edinbro': "No Liege of mine thou art; but I see From this day forth alone in thee God's creature, my mortal foe. "Through thee are my wife and children lost, My heritage and lands; And when my God shall show me a way, Thyself my mortal foe will I slay With these my proper hands." Against the coming of Christmastide I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth And we of his household rode with him In a close-ranked company; But not till the sun had sunk from his throne Did we reach the Scottish Sea. That eve was clenched for a boding storm, 'Neath a toilsome moon half seen; The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high; And where there was a line of the sky, And on a rock of the black beach-side, As the King drew nigh to it. And was it only the tossing furze Or brake of the waste sea-wold? Or was it an eagle bent to the blast? When near we came, we knew it at last For a woman tattered and old. "Four years it is since first I met, "Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu, A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud, And that shape for thine I knew. "A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle "And yet a year, in the Links of Forth, That clung high up thy breast. "And in this hour I find thee here, And well mine eyes may note That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast And risen around thy throat. "And when I meet thee again, O King, That of death hast such sore drouth,Except thou turn again on this shore.— The winding-sheet shall have moved once more And covered thine eyes and mouth. "O King, whom poor men bless for their King, Of thy fate be not so fain; But these my words for God's message take, .And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake Who rides beside thy rein!" While the woman spoke, the King's horse reared As if it would breast the sea, And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale The voice die dolorously. When the woman ceased, the steed was still, But the King gazed on her yet, And in silence save for the wail of the sea His eyes and her eyes met. At last he said:-"God's ways are His own: Man is but shadow and dust. Last night I prayed by His altar-stone; To-night I wend to the feast of His Son ; And in Him I set my trust. "I have held my people in sacred charge, And have not feared the sting Of proud men's hate,—to His will resign'd Who has but one same death for a hind And one same death for a King. “And if God in His wisdom have brought close The day when I must die, That day by water or fire or air My feet shall fall in the destined snare Wherever my road may lie. "What man can say but the Fiend hath set Thy sorcery on my path, My heart with the fear of death to fill, And turn me against God's very will To sink in His burning wrath?" The woman stood as the train rode past, And moved nor limb nor eye; And when we were shipped, we saw her there Still standing against the sky. As the ship made way, the moon once |