512

But when! or where!-This world was made for

Cæsar.

I'm weary of conjectures-this must end 'em.

[Laying his hand on his sword.

Thus am I doubly armed: My death and life,
my bane and antidote, are both before me:
this in a moment brings me to an end;
but this informs me I shall never die.
The soul secured in her existence smiles
at the drawn dagger, and defies its point:
the stars shall fade away, the sun himself
grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
but thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
unhurt amidst the war of elements,

the wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
J. ADDISON

CONSTANCY

HO is the honest man?

WHO

He that doth still and strongly good pursue,

to God, his neighbour, and himself most true;
whom neither force nor fawning can

unpin or wrench from giving all their due.

Whose honesty is not

so loose or easy, that a ruffling wind
can blow away, or glittering look it blind:
who rides his sure and even trot,

while the world now rides by, now lags behind.

Who when great trials come,

nor seeks nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay, till he the thing and the example weigh;

all being brought into a sum,

what place or person calls for, he doth pay.
Whom none can work or woo,

to use in any thing a trick or sleight;
for above all things he abhors deceit;

his words and works and fashion too
all of a piece and all are clear and straight.

Whom nothing can procure

when the wide world runs bias, from his will
to writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill.
This is the marksman, safe and sure,

who still is right, and prays to be so still.

G. HERBERT

513

I

TO CONTEMPLATION

WILL meet thee on the hill,
where with printless footsteps still

the morning in her buskin grey
springs upon her eastern way;
while the frolic zephyrs stir,
playing with the gossamer,
and on ruder pinions borne
shake the dew-drops from the thorn.
There, as o'er the fields we pass,
brushing with hasty feet the grass,
we will startle from her nest

the lively lark with speckled breast;
and hear the floating clouds among
her gale-transported matin-song;
or on the upland stile, embowered
with fragrant hawthorn snowy-flowered,
will sauntering sit, and listen still
to the herdsman's oaten quill,
wafted from the plain below,

or the heifer's frequent low.

Or, when the noontide heats oppress,

we will seek the dark recess,

where in the embowered translucent stream

the cattle shun the sultry beam;

and o'er us on the marge reclined

the drowsy fly her horn shall wind,

while Echo from her ancient oak
shall answer to the woodman's stroke;
or the little peasant's song

wandering lone the glens among.

514

H. K. WHITE

YE

FIELD FLOWERS

E field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true,
Yet, wildings of Nature, I doat upon you,

for ye waft me to summers of old,

when the earth teemed around me with fairy delight, and when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight, like treasures of silver and gold.

515

I love you for lulling me back into dreams

of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams,

and of birchen glades breathing their balm,

while the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote, and the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon's note made music that sweetened the calm.

Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune

than ye speak to my heart, little wildings of June: of old ruinous castles ye tell,

where I thought it delightful your beauties to find,
when the magic of Nature first breathed on my mind,
and your blossoms were part of her spell.

Even now what affections the violet awakes;
what loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes,
can the wild water-lily restore;

what landscapes I read in the primrose's looks,
and what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks,
in the vetches that tangled their shore.

Earth's cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear,
ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear
had scathed my existence's bloom;
once I welcome you more, in life's passionless stage,
with the visions of youth to revisit my age,

and I wish you to grow on my tomb.

ALL

THE LAST MAN

T. CAMPBELL

LL worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
the Sun himself must die,

before this mortal shall assume

its Immortality!

I saw a vision in my sleep,

that gave my spirit strength to sweep
adown the gulf of Time!

I saw the last of human mould,
that shall Creation's death behold,
as Adam saw her prime!

the Sun's eye had a sickly glare,
the Earth with age was wan,
the skeletons of nations were
around that lonely man!

516

Some had expired in fight, the brands
still rusted in their bony hands;

in plague and famine some!

Earth's cities had no sound nor tread;
and ships were drifting with the dead
to shores where all was dumb!
Yet prophet-like that lone one stood
with dauntless words and high,

that shook the sere leaves from the wood
as if a storm passed by,

saying, We are twins in death, proud Sun,
thy face is cold, thy race is run,

'tis Mercy bids thee go:

for thou ten thousand thousand years
hast seen the tide of human tears,
that shall no longer flow.

MODERN GREECE

T. CAMPBELL

E who hath bent him o'er the dead ere the first day of death is fled, the first dark day of nothingness,

the last of danger and distress,

(before Decay's effacing fingers

have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
and marked the mild angelic air,
the rapture of repose that's there,
the fixed yet tender traits that streak
the languor of the placid cheek,
and-but for that sad shrouded eye,

that fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
and but for that chill, changeless brow,
where cold Obstruction's apathy

appals the gazing mourner's heart,
as if to him it could impart

the doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
yes, but for these and these alone,
some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,
he still might doubt the tyrant's power;
so fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
the first, last look by death revealed!
Such is the aspect of this shore;

'tis Greece, but living Greece no more!

LORD BYRON

517

518

BEAUTY

AS rising on its purple wing

the insect-queen of eastern spring
o'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
invites the young pursuer near,

and leads him on from flower to flower
a weary chase and wasted hour,
then leaves him, as it soars on high,
with panting heart and tearful eye:
so Beauty lures the full-grown child
with hue as bright and wing as wild;
a chase of idle hopes and fears,
begun in folly, closed in tears.
If won, to equal ills betrayed,
woe waits the insect and the maid:
a life of pain, the loss of peace,
from infant's play and man's caprice:
the lovely toy so fiercely sought
hath lost its charm by being caught,
for every touch that wooed its stay
hath brushed its brightest hues away,
till charm and hue and beauty gone,
'tis left to fly or fall alone.

IF

ODE TO EVENING

LORD BYRON

F aught of oaten stop or pastoral song,
may hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear
(like thy own solemn springs,

thy springs, and dying gales);

O nymph reserved,-while now the bright-haired sun
sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
with brede ethereal wove,

o'erhang his wavy bed,

and air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat with short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, or where the beetle winds

his small but sullen horn,

as oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum,—
Now teach me, maid composed,

to breathe some softened strain,

whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale,