Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
And, if I die, no soul will pity me;
Nay; wherefore should they; since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?—
Methought the souls of all that I had murdered
Came to my tent, and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.
CLXXXII.-MOONLIGHT AND MUSIC.
1. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica: Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb, which thou beholdest,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim:
But, while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it.—
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn;
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
2. Do thou but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spuls;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
CLXXXIII.-THE ISLES OF GREECE.
1. THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,-
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet;
But all, except their sun, is set.
2. The mountains look on Marathon-
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free,
For, standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
3. 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.
4. Must we but weep o'er days more blessed?
Must we but blush?-Our fathers bled-
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla.
5. What! silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And answer,
Let one living head,
But one arise,- -we come, we come!"
'Tis but the living who are dumb.
6. In vain-in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!--
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold bacchanal !
7. The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom's best and bravest friend:
That tyrant was Miltiades!
O that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
8. Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells.
In native swords and native ranks
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.
9. Place me on Sunium's marble steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
1.-DISAPPOINTED AMBITION.
WHAT is 't to me, if all have stooped in turn?
Does fellowship in chains make bondage proud?
Does the plague lose its venor if it taint
My brother with myself? Is 't victory,
If I but find stretched by my bleeding side
All who come with me in the golden morn,
And shouted as my banner met the sun?
I can not think on 't. There's no faith in earth!
The very men with whom I walked through life,
Nay, till within this hour, in all the bonds
Of courtesy and high companionship,
They all deserted me; Metellus, Scipio,
Æmilius, Cato, even my kinsman, Cæsar.
KIDD.-31
All the chief names and senators of Rome,
This day, as if the heavens had stamped me black,
Turned ca their heel, just at the point of fate;
Left me a mockery, in the rabble's midst,
And followed their plebeian consul, Cicero !
This was the day to which I looked through life;
And it has failed me-vanished from my grasp,
Like air.
I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In hearts, as countries, lieth silent, bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the free chartered heavens. Be still! express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death!
Most like a monumental statue sat
In everlasting watch and moveless woe,
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it, spectator! Are its eyelids wet?
If it could weep, it could arise and go!
1. STRANGE! that one lightly-whispered tone
Is far, far sweeter unto me,
Than all the sounds that kiss the earth
Or breathe along the sea;
But, lady, when thy voice I greet,
Not heavenly music seems so sweet.
2. I look upon the fair, blue skies,
And naught but empty air I see,
But when I turn me to thine eyes,
It seemeth unto me
Ten thousand angels spread their wings
Within those little azure rings.
3. The lily hath the softest leaf
That ever western breeze hath fanned,
But thou shalt have the tender flower,
Say I may take thy hand;
That little hand to me doth yield
More joy than all the broidered field.
4. O, lady! there be many things
That seem right fair, below, ahove;
But sure not one among them all
Is half so sweet as love;
Let us not pay our vows alone,
But join two altars both in one.
CLXXXV.-LOCHIEL'S WARNING.
Wizard. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight:
They rally-they bleed!—for their kingdom and crown;
Woe, woe to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
"T is thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.
Weep Albin! to death and captivity led!
Oh, weep! but thy tears can not number the dead:
For a merciless sword o'er Culloden shall wave,
Culloden that reeks with the blood of the brave.
Lochiel. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-telling Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,
Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,
This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.
Wizard. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn? Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!
Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth,
From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the North?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;
But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed-for the spoiler is nigh.
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