War, he sung, is toil and trouble; Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying: If the world be worth thy winning, Take the good the gods provide thee. The many rend the skies with loud applause; Gazed on the fair Who caused his care And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, VI. Now strike the golden lyre again, A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. Break his bands of sleep asunder, And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark, hark, the horrid sound Has raised up his head: As awaked from the dead, And amazed, he stares around. Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, See the furies arise: See the snakes that they rear, How they hiss in their hair, And the sparkles that flash from their eyes! Behold a ghastly band, Each a torch in his hand! Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, Inglorious on the plain: Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew. Behold how they toss their torches on high, And glittering temples of their hostile gods. And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; To light him to his prey, And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. VII. Thus long ago, Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. Inventress of the vocal frame; The sweet enthusiast, from the sacred store, And added length to solemn sounds, With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Or both divide the crown; He raised a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down. DRYDEN. CLOSE at the edge of a busy town, A huge quadrangular mansion stands; II. Behind, is a patch of earth, by thorns Fenced in from the moor's wide marshy plains; By the side, is a gloomy lane, that steals To a quarry now filled with years of rains: But within, within! There Poverty scowls, Nursing in wrath her brood of pains. III. Enter and look! In the high-walled yards And women are sewing, without a sound; And not a laugh or a song goes round. IV. No communion-no kind thought V. Where is the bright-haired girl, that once Barred out from each other by night and day. VI. Letters they teach in their infant schools; But where are the lessons of great God taught? Lessons that child to the parent bind Habits of duty-love unbought? Alas! small good will be learned in schools Where Nature is trampled and turned to nought. VII. Seventeen summers, and where the girl The pauper's boyhood, and where is he? VIII. O Power! O Prudence! Law! look down From your heights on the pining poor below! Which ye have not learned, or deigned to know. IX. O Wealth, come forth with an open hand! To Love, wherever its home be found! The cannon's blast, and the rebel drum, Shaking the firm-set English ground! BARRY CORNWALL. Egeria. FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE." EGERIA! Sweet creation of some heart - |