I.

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep,

And thro' the moss the ivies creep,

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

II.

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;

Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings,

"There is no joy but calm!"

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

III.

Lo! in the middle of the wood

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juic'd apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.

All its allotted length of days

The flower ripens in its place,

Ripens, and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

IV.

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why

Should life all labor be?

Let us alone.

And in a little

Time driveth onward fast,
while our lips are dumb.

Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence; ripen, fall, and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

V.

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,

With half-shut eyes ever to seem

Falling asleep in a half dream!

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;

Eating the Lotos day by day,

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;

To muse and brood and live again in memory,

With those old faces of our infancy

Heap'd over with a mound of grass,

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in a. urn of brass!

VI.

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,

And dear the last embraces of our wives

And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change;

For surely now our household hearths are cold:
Our sons inherit us our looks are strange;
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle ?

Let what is broken so remain.

The Gods are hard to reconcile :
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,

Long labor unto aged breath,

Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars

And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

VII.

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,

Beneath a heaven dark and holy,

To watch the long bright river drawing slowly

His waters from the purple hill

To hear the dewy echoes calling

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine

To watch the emerald-color'd water falling

Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!

Only to see and hear the far-off sparkling brine,

Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.

VIII.

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:

The Lotos blows by every winding creek:

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:

Thro' every hollow cave and valley lone

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we,

Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething

free,

Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea,

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world :
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.

But they smile, they find a music centered in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;

Till they perish and they suffer some, 'tis whisper'd-down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

CHAPTER X.

CLIMAX.

IN Genung's Practical Rhetoric we find the following definition of Climax: "This figure, which depends upon the law that a thought must have progress, is the ordering of thought and expression so that there shall be uniform and evident increase in significance, or interest, or intensity."

An excellent illustration of increase in Significance is found in the following speech from Regulus:

"The artisan had forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement."

Here the author desires to show that the return of Regulus had thrown all Carthage into a state of intense excitement. The artisan, who could ill afford to lose his day's labor, had left his shop to join the throng that was taking its way to the great square of the city. The judge, whose duty it was to administer justice, could not refrain from joining the crowd. The priest, whose sacred office was to tend the altars of the gods, he too, for once, was neglecting his duty. And even the stern stoic, whose philosophy taught him to remain unmoved under any and all conditions of life, even he, perforce, must mix with the multitude thronging the Carthaginian streets. Each