504

505

when he shall hear she died upon his words,
the idea of her life shall sweetly creep

into his study of imagination;

and every lovely organ of her life,

shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,
more moving-delicate and full of life,
into the eye and prospect of his soul,
than when she liv'd indeed.

ON NIGHT AND DEATH

W. SHAKESPEARE

MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent

thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
this glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
and lo! creation widened in man's view:

who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
that to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!
Why do we then shun death, with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA

ALEXAS-ANTONY

HE snatch'd her poignard,

Al. S
SHE

B. WHITE

and, ere we could prevent the fatal blow, plung'd it within her breast: then turn'd to me, Go, bear my lord (said she) my last farewell;

and ask him if he yet suspect my faith.

More she was saying, but death rush'd betwixt.

She half pronounc'd your name with her last breath,
and buried half within her.

Ant. Then art thou innocent, my poor dear love?
And art thou dead?

O, those two words! their sound should be divided:
hadst thou been false, and died; or hadst thou lived,
and hadst been true- -But innocence and death!
this shows not well above.

J. DRYDEN

506

507

THE FUNERAL

LOWLY they bore, with solemn step, the dead;

my part began: a crowd drew near the place,
awe in each eye, alarm in every face;

so swift the ill, and of so fierce a kind,

that fear with pity mingled in each mind;

friends with the husband came, their griefs, to blend;
for good-man Frankford was to all a friend.
The last-born boy they held above the bier;
he knew not grief, but cries express'd his fear;
each different age and sex reveal'd its pain,
in now a louder, now a lower strain!

while the meek father, listening to their tones,
swell'd the full cadence of the grief by groans.

INVOCATION OF SLEEP

G. CRABBE

CARE sable,

‘ARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night,

508

relieve my languish, and restore the light,
with dark forgetting of my care's return;
and let the day be time enough to mourn
the shipwreck of my ill-adventur'd youth;
let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
to model forth the passions of the morrow;
never let rising sun approve you liars,
to add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
and never wake to feel the day's disdain.

TIME

J. FLETCHER

OR time is like a fashionable host,

FOR

that slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; and with his arms out-stretched, as he would fly, grasps-in the comer: welcome ever smiles,

and farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek remuneration for the thing it was;

for beauty, wit,

high birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,

509

love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
to envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-
that all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
though they are made and moulded of things past;
and give to dust, that is a little gilt,

more laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object.

WITH

W. SHAKESPEARE

WITH war-songs and wild music they came on: we the while kneeling raised with one accord the hymn of supplication. Front to front, and now th' embattled armies stood: a band of priests, all sable-garmented, advanced: they piled a heap of sedge before our host, and warned us- "Sons of Ocean! from the land of Atlan, while ye may, depart in peace! before the fire shall be extinguished, hence! or, even as yon dry sedge amid the flame, so shall ye be consumed." The arid heap they kindled and the rapid flame ran up, and blazed and died away.

Then from his bow, with steady hand, their chosen archer loosed

the arrow of the Omen.

510 BEATRICE PARTING FROM HER BROTHER BERNARDO

`AREWELL, my tender brother. Think

FARE

of our sad fate with gentleness, as now:

and let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee
thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,

but tears and patience. One thing more, my child:
for thine own sake be constant to the love

thou bearest us; and to the faith that I
lived ever holy and unstained. And though

ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name
be as a mark stamped on thy innocent brow
for men to point at as they pass, do thou
forbear and never think a thought unkind
of those who perhaps love thee in their graves.
So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain
being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!

P. B. SHELLEY

511

512

513

ASIA TO PANTHEA

OOK, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain: beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist, as a lake, paving in the morning sky, with azure waves which burst in silver light, some Indian vale. Behold it rolling on under the curdling winds, and islanding the peak whereon we stand, midway, around, encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves, and wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist; and far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains from icy spires of sun-like radiance fling the dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, from some Atlantic islet scattered up, spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops.

P. B. SHELLEY

CHARACTER OF A GENTLE WOMAN

NOBI

[OBLE she is by birth, made good by virtue, exceeding fair, and her behaviour to it

is like a singular musician

to a sweet instrument, or else as doctrine

is to the soul, that puts it into act,

and prints it full of admirable forms.

Her eminent judgment to dispose those parts
sits on her brow, and holds a silver sceptre,
with which she keeps time to the several musics,
placed in the sacred concert of her beauties:
love's complete armoury is managed in her,
to stir affection, and the discipline

to check, and to affright it from attempting
any attaint might disproportion her,
or make her graces less than circular.

G. CHAPMAN

CONSOLATION OF EARLY DEATH

VIROLET TO ASCANIO

WEET prince, the name of death was never terrible

SWEET

to him that knew to live; nor the loud torrent

of all afflictions, singing as they swim,

a gall of heart but to a guilty conscience:

whilst we stand fair, though by a two-edged storm
we find untimely falls, like early roses

bent to the earth, we bear our native sweetness.
The memory and monuments of good men

are more than lives; and though their tombs want
tongues,

yet have they eyes that daily sweat their losses,
and such a tear from stone no time can value.
To die both young and good are Nature's curses,
as the world says; ask Truth, they are bounteous
blessings;

for then we reach at Heaven in our full virtues,
and fix ourselves new stars, crown'd with our goodness.
J. FLETCHER

514

KING ARTHUR TO THE KNIGHT

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath :

T%

"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,

unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
authority forgets a dying king,

laid widow'd of the power in his eye

that bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art,

for thou, the latest-left of all my knights,

in whom should meet the offices of all,
thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
either from lust of gold or like a girl
valuing the giddy pleasures of the eyes.
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,

and the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
but, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,

I will arise and slay thee with my hands."

A. TENNYSON

515

FRIAR LAURENCE ENTERING HIS CELL WITH

TH

A BASKET

'HE grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; and fleckéd darkness like a drunkard reels from forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels: now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, the day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry,