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The KINGS TREASURIES 
 
 OF LITERATURE 
 
 GENERAL EDITOR 
 Sir AT QLIILLER COUCH 
 
^^ ^^ ^'^jr^ ■v<L v^ "^^..^ *^ .,V*"^,#-^''^.r^ Si ^ V^.^^Mr.A: 
 
 EWYORK EPDUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
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 OPY ADDED 
 
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 THE GRANT EDUCATIONAL CO. LTD. 
 
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 All rights reserved 
 

 
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 ■ IIS 
 
 
 
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 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 page 
 
 
 Introduction 
 
 . 
 
 7 
 
 I. 
 
 Sir Patrick Spens 
 
 Old Ballad 
 
 13 
 
 II. 
 
 Lord Ullin's Daughter. 
 
 Thomas Campbell 
 
 17 
 
 III. 
 
 The Battle of Hohen- 
 
 
 
 
 LINDEN. 
 
 Thomas Campbell 
 
 19 
 
 IV. 
 
 Rosabelle 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 
 
 21 
 
 V. 
 
 Alice Brand . 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 
 
 23 
 
 VI. 
 
 Lochinvar 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 
 
 28 
 
 VII. 
 
 The High Tide on the 
 
 
 
 
 Coast of Lincolnshire 
 
 Jean Ingelow 
 
 30 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Herv6 Riel . 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 Z7 
 
 IX. 
 
 An Incident of the 
 
 
 
 
 French Camp 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 43 
 
 X. 
 
 How They Brought the 
 Good News from Ghent 
 
 
 
 
 TO Aix 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 45 
 
 XI. 
 
 The Ballad of Agincourt 
 
 Michael Drayton 
 
 48 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Battle of Naseby . 
 
 Lord Macaulay 
 
 53 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Hawke .... 
 
 Sir Henry Newbolt 
 
 56 
 
 XIV. 
 
 After Blenheim . 
 
 Robert South ey 
 
 S7 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Burial of Sir John 
 
 
 
 
 Moore .... 
 
 Charles Wolfe 
 
 59 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Admiral Hosier's Ghost 
 
 Richard Glover 
 
 61 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The Captain . 
 
 Lord Tennyson 
 
 64 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott . 
 
 Lord Tennyson 
 
 67 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Forsaken Merman . 
 
 Matthew A mold 
 
 73 
 
 XX. 
 
 Jason's Ploughing 
 
 William Morris 
 
 7S 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Healing of Conall 
 
 
 
 
 Carnach 
 
 Sir Samuel Ferguson 89 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Death of Cuchulain 
 
 W. B, Yeats 
 
 98 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 La Belle Dame Sans 
 
 
 
 
 Merci .... 
 
 John Keats 
 
 102 
 
 F - 
 
 383 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XXIV. Love 
 
 XXV. The Sensitive Plant 
 XXVI. Arethusa 
 XXVII. Lucy Gray 
 XXVIII. Laodamia . 
 XXIX. The Hermit 
 XXX, Alexander's Feast . 
 XXXI. On the Death of a 
 
 Favourite Cat 
 XXXII. The Needless Alarm 
 
 XXXIII. The Colubriad . 
 
 XXXIV. On the Death of 
 
 Mrs. Throckmor- 
 ton's Bullfinch 
 XXXV. The Haunch of 
 
 Venison . 
 XXXVI. Elegy on the Death 
 
 OF A Mad Dog 
 XXXVII. Llyn - Y - Dreiddiad- 
 
 Vrawd . 
 XXXVIII. The Battle of Lim- 
 erick 
 XXXIX. Faithless Sally 
 Brown . 
 XL. The Heathen Chinee 
 
 S. T. Coleridge 104 
 
 P. B. Shelley 109 
 
 P.B.Shelley 122 
 
 William Wordsworth 126 
 William Wordsworth 129 
 Thomas Parnell 136 
 
 John Dry den 145 
 
 Thomas Gray 
 William Cowper 
 William Cowper 
 
 153 
 15s 
 159 
 
 William Cowper 161 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith 164 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith 169 
 
 Thomas Love Peacock 171 
 
 W. M. Thackeray 174 
 
 Thomas Hood 179 
 
 Bret Harte 182 
 
 COMMENTARY: 
 
 Further Notes, including Biographies 
 Exercises ...... 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 18S 
 223 
 
 For permission to use copyright poems thanks are due and 
 are hereby tendered: to Mr. John Murray for Browning's Herve 
 Riel', to Messrs. T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., and to Mr. W. B. Yeats 
 for The Death of Cuchulain from Poems : New Edition ; to 
 H. S. H. Guinness, Esq., for Sir Samuel Ferguson's The Healing 
 of Conall Carnach ; and to Sir H. Ncwbolt and Mr. John Murray 
 for Hawke from Poems New and Old. 
 
It is true of all language that the thing said is not 
 really separable from the way of saying it. If it were 
 differently said, it would be — no matter how slightly — 
 a different thing. " Thanks! " *' Thank you! " and 
 " I thank you " differ considerably. The best good 
 story will fail to touch our emotions if it is badly told. 
 And a good story in prose is not so touching as a fine 
 poem on the same subject. The best prose narra- 
 tive of Sir John Moore's burial cannot compare with 
 Wolfe's lines (XV.) ; the steady rhythm as of a funeral 
 march is inseparable from the narrative ; the whole 
 scene is concentrated and made vivid in a way im- 
 possible to prose. Even a less obviously touching 
 story may be transfigured by the poet's imagination 
 and art. Read a prose account of Alpheus and Are- 
 thusa, and then read Shelley's poem (XXVL); the 
 swift rush of the anapaests, and the cunning choice of 
 beautiful words, grip us immediately; the mere sound 
 excites us; our attention is aroused, and we delight in 
 a new experience. For a poet is a person with stronger 
 and nobler feelings than ours, who can, if we give him 
 the chance, strengthen and ennoble such feelings as 
 we have, and so increase our power. It is not, of 
 course to be expected that everyone will enjoy all 
 (even good) poetry, and if we don't enjoy it, honesty 
 should make us ashamed of pretending to. But the 
 taste for poetry may be cultivated, like other tastes, 
 
 7 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 and it is a possession worth having. And as stories 
 appeal to everyone, this collection ought to be of some 
 use. 
 
 Why should a poet have the power of telling stories — 
 and other things — better than prose writers? Partly 
 because he is of necessity an artist in words. Even 
 such straightforward verses as How they Brought the 
 Good News from Ghent to Aix must have taken more 
 thought and selection than a simple prose narrative. 
 A poet is bound to write carefully, if only because 
 slovenly poetry is unreadable ; while we are unfortun- 
 ately quite accustomed to slovenly prose. But the 
 poet's chief advantage lies in the fact mentioned — 
 that the metre rouses our attention and so increases 
 our power of perception. The cunning fellow knows 
 that, and presumes on it. He economises his words, 
 and so increases their effect. There is a good example 
 in No. XXXIV. 
 
 His teeth were strong, the cage was wood — 
 He left poor Bully's beak. 
 
 Notice how much is omitted in The Death of Cuchtdain, 
 and how the quality of its pathos is affected thereby. 
 Then the mere pleasure of rhythmical sound is an ad- 
 vantage, for we are thereby put into the right mood un- 
 awares. Sound is of the essence of poetry. As a maxim 
 for poets, the advice " take care of the sound and the 
 sense will take care of itself " may be liable to abuse; 
 but for the readers of poetry — and all poetry should 
 be read aloud, until our inward ear is acute — the advice 
 is a command. The effects of metre are many. It may 
 be stirring and harp-like as in Agincourt, or stirring 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 and hammer-like as in Naseby; it may dance with 
 elfin tread as in The Lady of Shaloit, move swiftly and 
 lightly as in The Sensitive Plant, gallop as in Lochinvar, 
 or pace solemnly as in Laodamia and Hohenlinden ; or 
 it may do all these things, and others, as in Alexander's 
 Feast. 
 
 This collection illustrates some of the many ways 
 of telling a story in verse. The Story Poem par 
 excellence would be the epic, a long poem describing 
 some great action, with a '' hero " of course, and 
 with all its parts so closely wrought into the main 
 theme that none could be removed without loss to 
 the whole. Such poems are naturally rare; the Iliad 
 and Odyssey of Homer, and Milton's Paradise Lost, 
 occur most readily to the mind. Again, every drama 
 in verse is a Story Poem; but these also are too big 
 for us. However, in many of our poems the dramatic 
 element is important. This is especially true of our 
 only example of the old ballads. Sir Patrick Spens, 
 and it occurs in their modern imitations, e.g. Lord 
 Ullin's Daughter, Alice Brand, and Rosabelle; in all 
 these the characters tell part of the story. This is 
 natural; for the ballad had its origin in a sort of 
 village ballet or story in action, where the chief charac- 
 ters might sing or say their words, and the general 
 company contribute the refrain. Story poems without 
 the length, seriousness, or artistic unity of the epic, 
 are called narrative or lyrical according as the his- 
 torical or the emotional element is the more prominent. 
 Chaucer was a great narrative poet, and so was his 
 disciple Morris; The Life and Death of Jason, of which 
 
I o INTRODUCTION 
 
 No. XX. is a small portion, is not an epic, because 
 the adventures described are not a part of one great 
 action. A biography might indeed make an epic, but 
 only if the whole life recorded was spent in carrying 
 out some one idea. Spenser's Faerie Queene was 
 meant to be an epic, but was never completed. When 
 the story is merely a vehicle for satire, as in Butler's 
 Hudihras, the poem is naturally classed among satires ; 
 but Pope's delightful Rape of the Lock is really a 
 mock-epic. Dry den wrote some admirable narrative 
 poems at the very end of his life. Burns's Tarn o' 
 Shanter is an excellent example of the lighter sort. 
 Crabbe's tales of provincial life are generally sombre, 
 but powerful and full of observation. When we come 
 to the nineteenth century, the distinction between 
 narrative and lyrical tends to break down. Such poems 
 as Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Keats's Eve of St. 
 Agnes are on the border line. Scott and Byron wrote 
 long narrative poems in lyric measures. We are on 
 clearer ground again with Tennyson's Idylls of the 
 King, English Idylls, and poems like Enoch Arden, 
 Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rtistum, Swinburne's 
 St. Dorothy, Morris's Earthly Paradise, and Ferguson's 
 fine versions of Irish sagas, which are at last winning 
 recognition. In fact, what Chaucer and Dryden did 
 for their generations — the dressing up of old stories 
 in the language and general poetic outfit of later times 
 — ^was done for the nineteenth century by the writers 
 just mentioned; but Tennyson, especially in his later 
 Idylls, modernised or sanctified the characters so much 
 that some people prefer to read the tales in the old 
 
INTRODUCTION ii 
 
 prose of Sir Thomas Malory. Fine examples of ballad 
 and lyrical Story Poems, for one reason or another 
 not given here, are Hood's The Dream of Eugene Aram, 
 Rossetti's Sister Helen, Buchanan's Ballad of Judas 
 Iscariot, Morris's The Haystack in the Floods, Mere- 
 dith's The Death of Attila and The Young Princess, 
 and Kipling's Ballad of East and West. An interesting 
 variety of Story Poem was invented by Edward Lear 
 in his nonsense poems, such as The Jumblies. Here 
 the sound has asserted itself above the sense, and yet 
 the sense has a queer sort of coherence which forbids 
 us to despise it. Perhaps we attempt the impossible 
 when we try to separate the two. Sir W. S. Gilbert's 
 Bab Ballads are also admirable in their special way, 
 a way so special that the recognised adjective " Gil- 
 bertian " is the only short description. Captain Reece 
 or The Rival Curates would have adorned this collection. 
 The connection of the Story and the Poem ma^^ be 
 of three kinds. The story may be (i) the immediate 
 cause of the emotion which produces the poem, (2) a 
 means chosen for expressing some thought or emotion 
 to which the poet wishes to give form, or (3) a sort 
 of ground-work for poetic embroidery. The Burial of 
 Sir John Moore is one good example of the first class, 
 and An Incident of the French Camp looks like another. 
 Just as clearly The Sensitive Plant, The Forsaken 
 Merman, and Lucy Gray belong to the second class. 
 Sometimes it is hard to say to which of the two a 
 poem, e.g. Arethusa, should be assigned. Story Poems 
 of these two classes will in general be lyrics; those of 
 the third class will in general be narrative poems. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Such in this collection are Jason's Plotcghing, The 
 Healing of Conall Carnach, and The Hermit ; for it 
 does not follow that a poem with a moral was written 
 for the moral's sake. Worthy Dr. Parnell may have 
 imagined that he was vindicating the ways of God to 
 man, but we are at liberty to think that he was enjoy- 
 ing the effective rendering of a good story. Alexander's 
 Feast — like Pindar's Odes, of which it is an imitation 
 — is a miracle, for it is a fine lyric made to order, 
 expressing emotions deliberately called up, not spon- 
 taneous. It seems to belong to both our second and 
 third classes. Laodamia, on the other hand, is the 
 expression of an intense personal emotion, yet it is 
 rather long and stiff for a lyric; however, that is a 
 debatable point. 
 
 The phrase " poetic embroidery " was used above. 
 It is perhaps a dubious phrase, for it might conceiv- 
 ably suggest that poetic language is a mere decorative 
 addition to plain sense. Let us therefore recur to our 
 opening statement, which shows the futility of that 
 view; and let us notice further that when a poet 
 *' embroiders,'' his materials are not ultimately his 
 words, but the thoughts and emotions expressed by 
 those words; and in all good poetry those thoughts 
 and emotions are such as arise naturally from the 
 subject, whether that is borrowed or invented; they 
 are inseparable parts of the subject as the poet's rich 
 nature conceives it, and in nowise mere ornaments. 
 
I. SIR PATRICK SPENS 
 
 The king sits in Dumfermline town, 
 Drinking the blude-red wine: 
 
 " O whare will I get a skeely skipper 
 To sail this new ship o' mine? '' 
 
 O up and spake an eldern knight 
 Sat at the king's right knee : 
 
 " Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor 
 That ever sailed the sea/' 
 
 Our king has written a braid letter 
 And sealed it wi' his hand. 
 
 And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens, 
 Was walking on the sands. 
 
 '' To Noroway, to Noroway, 
 To Noroway o'er the faem ; 
 
 The king's daughter to Noroway, 
 'Tis thou maun bring her hame." 
 
 3. Skeely. Skilly, skilful. 
 
 9. Braid. Broad, open; not a closed roll. 
 
 14. Faem. Foam. 16. Maun. Must. 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
14 STORY POEMS 
 
 ** Be it wind or weet, be it hail or sleet. 
 
 Our ship must sail the f aem ; 
 The king's daughter to Noroway, 
 
 Tis we must bring her hame." 20 
 
 They hoisted their sails on Monenday morn 
 
 Wi' a' the speed they may ; 
 They hae landed safe in Noroway 
 
 Upon a Wodensday. 
 
 They hadna been a week, a week, 
 
 In Noroway but twae, 
 When that the lords o' Noroway 
 
 Began aloud to say : 
 
 *' Ye Scottishmen spend a' our king's goud 
 And a' our queenis fee." 30 
 
 *' Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud, 
 Fu' loud I hear ye lie. 
 
 " For I brought as mickle white monie 
 
 As gane my men and me. 
 And I brought a half-fou o' gude red goud 
 
 Out o'er the sea wi' me. 
 
 *' Mak' ready, mak' ready, my merry men a'. 
 
 Our gude ship sails the morn." 
 *' Now ever alake! my master dear, 
 
 I fear a deadly storm. 40 
 
 17. Weet. Wet. 30. Fee. Wealth. 
 
 34. Gane. Sufficed. 35. Fou. Bushel. 
 
OLD BALLAD 15 
 
 " I saw the new moon late yestreen, 
 Wi' the auld moon in her arm ; 
 
 And if we gang to sea, master, 
 I fear we'll come to harm." 
 
 They hadna sailed upon the sea 
 
 A day but barely three, 
 Till loud and boisterous grew the wind, 
 
 And gurly grew the sea. 
 
 *' O where will I get a gude sailor 
 To tak' my helm in hand, 50 
 
 Till I gae up to the tall topmast 
 To see if I can spy land ? " 
 
 " O here am I a sailor gude. 
 
 To tak' the helm in hand. 
 Till you gae up to the tall topmast. 
 
 But I fear you'll ne'er spy land." 
 
 He hadna gane a step, a step, 
 
 A step but barely ane. 
 When a bolt flew out o' our goodly ship. 
 
 And the salt sea it came in. 60 
 
 '* Gae fetch a web o' the silken claith, 
 
 Anither o' the twine. 
 And wap them into our ship's side. 
 
 And letna the sea come in." 
 
 48. Gurly. Rough. 6i. Claith, Cloth. 
 
 63. Wap. Throw quickly. 
 
i6 STORY POEMS 
 
 They fetched a web o' silken claith, 
 
 Anither o' the twine, 
 And they wapped them into that gude 
 ship's side, 
 
 But still the sea cam' in. 
 
 O laith, laith were om' gude Scots lords 
 To weet their milk-white hands; 70 
 
 But lang ere a' the play was ower 
 They wat their gouden bands. 
 
 O laith, laith were our gude Scots lords 
 To weet their cork-heel'd shoon ; 
 
 But lang ere a' the play was play'd 
 They wat their hats aboon. 
 
 O lang, lang may the ladies sit 
 Wi' their fans into their hand. 
 
 Before they see Sir Patrick Spens 
 
 Come sailing to the land. 80 
 
 And lang, lang may the maidens sit 
 Wi' their goud kaims in their hair 
 
 Awaiting for their ain dear loves, 
 For them they'll see nae mair. 
 
 Half ower, half ower to Aberdour, 
 
 It's fifty fathoms deep; 
 And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, 
 
 Wi' the Scots lords at his feet. 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 69. Laith. Loth, unwilling. 74. Shoon, Shoes. 
 
 82. Kaims. Combs. 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL 17 
 
 IL LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 A CHIEFTAIN, to the Highlands bound, 
 
 Cries, *' Boatman, do not tarry, 
 And ril give thee a silver pound 
 
 To row us o'er the ferry/' 
 
 " Now who be ye would cross Lochgyle, 
 
 This dark and stormy water? '' 
 '' O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, 
 
 And this Lord Ullin's daughter. 
 
 " And fast before her father's men 
 
 Three days we've fled together, 10 
 
 For should he find us in the glen. 
 
 My blood would stain the heather. 
 
 '* His horsemen hard behind us ride; 
 
 Should they our steps discover. 
 Then who will cheer my bonny bride 
 
 When they have slain her lover ? " 
 
 Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, 
 
 *' I'll go, my chief, I'm ready! 
 It is not for your silver bright ; 
 
 But for your winsome lady. 2a 
 
i8 STORY POEMS 
 
 " And by my word! the bonny bird 
 
 In danger shall not tarry; 
 So though the waves are raging white, 
 
 111 row you o'er the ferry." 
 
 By this the storm grew loud apace, 
 The water-wraith was shrieking; 
 
 And in the scowl of Heaven each face 
 Grew dark as they were speaking. 
 
 But still as wilder blew the wind. 
 
 And as the night grew drearer, 30 
 
 Adown the glen rode armed men. 
 Their trampling sounded nearer. 
 
 " O haste thee, haste! " the lady cries, 
 *' Though tempests round us gather; 
 
 I'll meet the raging of the skies. 
 But not an angry father." 
 
 The boat has left a stormy land, 
 
 A stormy sea before her — 
 When, oh ! too strong, for human hand. 
 
 The tempest gathered o'er her. 40 
 
 And still they row'd amidst the roar 
 
 Of waters fast prevailing; 
 Lord UUin reach'd that fatal shore. 
 
 His wrath was changed to wailing. 
 
 21. Bird. Maiden; confused with the old word " burd." 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL 19 
 
 For sore dismayed, through storm and shade. 
 
 His child he did discover; 
 One lovely hand she stretched for aid. 
 
 And one was round her lover. 
 
 '* Come back ! come back ! '* he cried in grief, 
 " Across this stormy water; 50 
 
 And I'll forgive your Highland chief, 
 My daughter! Oh, my daughter ! " 
 
 Twas vain : the loud waves lash'd the shore. 
 
 Return or aid preventing. 
 The waters wild went o'er his child, 
 
 And he was left lamenting. 
 
 Thomas Campbell. 
 
 HL THE BATTLE OF HOHENLINDEN 
 
 On Linden when the sun was low, 
 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow. 
 And dark as winter was the flow 
 Of Iser, rolhng rapidly. 
 
 But Linden saw another sight, 
 When the drum beat at dead of night. 
 Commanding fires of death to light 
 The darkness of her scenery. 
 
20 STORY POEMS 
 
 By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, 
 Each warrior drew his battle-blade, lo 
 
 And furious every charger neighed. 
 To join the dreadful revelry. 
 
 Then shook the hills with thunder riven. 
 Then rushed the steed to battle driven. 
 And louder than the bolts of Heaven, 
 Far flashed the red artillery. 
 
 And redder yet those fires shall glow. 
 On Linden's hills of blood-stained snow; 
 And bloodier yet shall be the flow 
 
 Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 20 
 
 Tis morn ! but scarce yon lurid sun 
 Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun. 
 Where furious Frank and fiery Hun 
 Shout in their sulphurous canopy. 
 
 The combat deepens. On, ye brave 
 Who rush to glory, or the grave ! 
 Wave, Munich ! all thy banners wave 
 And charge with all thy chivalry. 
 
 Few, few shall part, where many meet. 
 The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 30 
 
 And every turf beneath their feet 
 Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 
 
 Thomas Campbell. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT 21 
 
 IV. ROSABELLE 
 
 O LISTEN, listen, ladies gay ! 
 
 No haughty feat of arms I tell ; 
 Soft is the note and sad the lay 
 
 That mourns the lovely Rosabelle. 
 
 *' Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! 
 
 And, gentle lady, deign to stay ! 
 Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch, 
 
 Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. 
 
 *' The blackening wave is edged with white; 
 
 To inch and rock the sea-mews fly; lo 
 
 The fishers have heard the water-sprite, 
 
 Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh. 
 
 " Last night the gifted Seer did view. 
 
 A wet shroud swathed round lady gay; 
 Then stay thee. Fair, in Ravensheuch ; 
 
 Why cross the gloomy firth to-day ? " 
 
 " Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir 
 
 To-night at Roslin leads the ball, 
 But that my lady mother there 
 
 Sits lonely in her castle hall. 20 
 
 10. Inch. Island. 
 
22 STORY POEMS 
 
 " 'Tis not because the ring they ride, 
 And Lindesay at the ring rides well, 
 
 But that my sire the wine will chide 
 If 'tis not filled by Rosabelle." 
 
 0*er Roslin all that dreary night 
 
 A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam ; 
 
 'Twas broader than the watchfire's light, 
 And redder than the bright moonbeam. 
 
 It glared on Roslin's castled rock. 
 
 It ruddied all the copsewood glen ; 30 
 
 'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak. 
 
 And seen from cavem'd Hawthornden. 
 
 Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud. 
 Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie. 
 
 Each Baron, for a sable shroud, 
 Sheath'd in his iron panoply. 
 
 Seem'd all on fire within, around, 
 
 Deep sacristy and altar's pale ; 
 
 * Shone every pillar foliage-bound, 
 
 And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. 40 
 
 Blazed battlement and pinnet high. 
 Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair: 
 
 So still they blaze, when fate is nigh 
 The lordly line of high Saint Clair. 
 
 21. Ring. The ring used for tilting at. 
 38. Pale. Enclosure. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT 23 
 
 There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold 
 
 Lie buried within that proud chapelle: 50 
 
 Each one the holy vault doth hold, 
 But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle. 
 
 And each Saint Clair was buried there. 
 With candle, with book, and with knell ; 
 
 But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung 
 The dirge of lovely Rosabelle. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 V. ALICE BRAND 
 
 Merry it is in the good greenwood. 
 When the mavis and merle are singing. 
 
 When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry. 
 And the hunter's horn is ringing. 
 
 " O Alice Brand, my native land 
 
 Is lost for love of you; 
 And we must hold by wood and wold. 
 
 As outlaws wont to do. 
 
 " O AUce, 'twas all for thy locks so bright, 
 
 And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue, 10 
 
 That on the night of our luckless flight, 
 Thy brother bold I slew. 
 
 2. Mavis. Thrush. Merle, Blackbird. 
 7. Wold. Open country. 
 
24 STORY POEMS 
 
 " Now must I teach to hew the beech 
 
 The hand that held the glaive. 
 For leaves to spread our lowly bed, 
 
 And stakes to fence our cave. 
 
 " And for vest of pall, thy fingers small 
 
 That wont on harp to stray, 
 A cloak must shear from the slaughter'd deer. 
 
 To keep the cold away." 20 
 
 ^' O Richard! if my brother died, 
 
 Twas but a fatal chance; 
 For darkling was the battle tried, 
 
 And fortune sped the lance. 
 
 ^' If pall and vair no more I wear, 
 
 Nor thou the crimson sheen, 
 As warm, we'll say, is the russet grey, 
 
 As gay the forest-green. 
 
 ^* And Richard, if our lot be hard. 
 
 And lost thy native land, 30 
 
 Still Alice has her own Richard, 
 
 And he his AUce Brand.*' 
 
 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood. 
 So blithe Lady Alice is singing: 
 
 14. Glaive. Sword. 17. Pall. Fine cloth. 
 
 25. Vair. Squirrel fur. 
 
 2y. Russet, Homespun woollen cloth. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT 25 
 
 On the beech's pride, and oak's brown side. 
 Lord Richard's axe is ringing. 
 
 Up spoke the moody Elfin King, 
 
 Who won'd within the hill ; 
 Like wind in the porch of a ruin'd church, 
 
 His voice was ghostly shrill : 40 
 
 '' Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak, 
 
 Our moonlight circle's screen ? 
 Or who comes here to chase the deer. 
 
 Beloved of our Elfin Queen? 
 Or who may dare on wold to wear 
 
 The fairies' fatal green ? 
 
 '* Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie, 
 
 For thou wert christen'd man ; 
 For cross or sign thou wilt not fly. 
 
 For mutter'd word or ban. 50 
 
 *' Lay on him the curse of the wither 'd heart. 
 
 The curse of the sleepless eye ; 
 Till he wish and pray that his life would part. 
 
 Nor yet find leave to die." 
 
 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood, 
 Though the birds have still'd their singing; 
 
 The evening blaze doth Alice raise. 
 And Richard is faggots bringing. 
 38. Won'd. Lived. 
 
26 STORY POEMS 
 
 Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf. 
 
 Before Lord Richard stands, 60 
 
 And, as he crossed and bless'd himself, 
 ^' I fear not sign,*' quoth the grisly elf, 
 '* That is made with bloody hands.'* 
 
 But out then spoke she, Alice Brand, 
 
 That woman void of fear : 
 '* And if there's blood upon his hand, 
 
 'Tis but the blood of deer." 
 
 ^' Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood! 
 
 It cleaves unto his hand. 
 The stain of thine own kindly blood, 70 
 
 The blood of Ethert Brand." 
 
 Then forward stepp'd she, Alice Brand, 
 
 And made the holy sign ; 
 '** And if there's blood on Richard's hand, 
 
 A spotless hand is mine. 
 
 ^* And I conjure thee, Demon elf, 
 
 By Him whom Demons fear. 
 To show us whence thou art thyself. 
 
 And what thine errand here? " 
 
 '*' 'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in Fairy-land, 80 
 
 When fairy birds are singing. 
 When the court doth ride by their monarch's side. 
 
 With bit and bridle ringing: 
 
 70. Kindly. Kindred. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT 27 
 
 " And gaily shines the Fairy-land — 
 
 But all is glistening show, 
 Like the idle gleam that December's beam 
 
 Can dart on ice and snow. 
 
 " And fading, like that varied gleam. 
 
 Is our inconstant shape. 
 Who now like knight and lady seem, 9a 
 
 And now like dwarf and ape. 
 
 '* It was between the night and day, 
 
 When the Fairy King has power. 
 That I sunk down in a sinful fray, 
 And, 'twixt life and death, was snatched away 
 
 To the joyless Elfin bower. 
 
 " But wist I of a woman bold. 
 
 Who thrice my brow durst sign, 
 I might regain my mortal mould. 
 
 As fair a form as thine." 100 
 
 She crossed him once — she crossed him twice — 
 
 That lady was so brave ; 
 The fouler grew his goblin hue, 
 
 The darker grew the cave. 
 
 She crossed him thrice, that lady bold ; 
 
 He rose beneath her hand 
 The fairest knight on Scottish mould. 
 
 Her brother, Ethert Brand! 
 
28 STORY POEMS 
 
 Merry it is in good greenwood, 
 
 When the mavis and merle are singing, no 
 
 But merrier were they in Dumfermline grey. 
 
 When all the bells were ringing. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 VI. LOCHINVAR 
 
 Lady Heron's Song 
 
 O YOUNG Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
 Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; 
 And save his good broadsword, he weapons had none. 
 He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone. 
 So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war. 
 There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 
 
 He staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 
 
 He swam the Eske river where ford there was none; 
 
 But ere he alighted at Netherby gate. 
 
 The bride had consented, the gallant came late: lo 
 
 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, 
 
 Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 
 
 So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, 
 
 Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all : 
 
 Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 
 
 (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), 
 
 '' O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, 
 
 Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar? " 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT 29 
 
 " I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied — 
 Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide ; 20 
 And now I am come, with this lost love of mine 
 To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
 There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far. 
 That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." ' 
 
 The bride kiss'd the goblet : the knight took it up, 
 He quaff 'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
 She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh, 
 With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. 
 He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar : 
 '* Now tread we a measure ! " said young Lochinvar. 30 
 
 So stately his form, and so lovely her face. 
 
 That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 
 
 While her mother did fret, and her father did fume. 
 
 And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and 
 
 plume ; 
 And the bride-maidens whispered "Twere better 
 
 by far. 
 To have match'd our fair cousin with young Loch- 
 invar." 
 
 One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear. 
 When they reached the hall-door, and the charger 
 
 stood near ; 
 So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 
 So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 40 
 
 32. Galliard. A lively dance. 
 
 39. Croupe. Hind-quarters of a horse. 
 
30 STORY POEMS 
 
 " She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; 
 They'll have fleet steeds that follow,'' quoth young 
 Lochinvar. 
 
 There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby 
 
 clan; 
 Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and 
 
 they ran: 
 There was racing and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 
 But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 
 So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. 
 Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ? 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 VIL THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST 
 OF LINCOLNSHIRE 
 
 (1571) 
 
 The old mayor climbed the belfry tower. 
 The ringers ran by two, by three ; 
 
 '' Pull, if ye never pulled before; 
 Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. 
 
 '* Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! 
 
 Ply all your changes, all your swells. 
 Play uppe, ' The Brides of Enderby.' " 
 
 Men say it was a stolen tyde — 
 The Lord that sent it. He knows all; 
 
 But in myne ears doth still abide 10 
 
 The message that the bells let fall: 
 
JEAN INGELOW 33r 
 
 And there was nought of strange, beside 
 The flights of mews and peewits pied 
 By milUons crouched on the old sea wall. 
 
 I sat and spun within the doore, 
 
 My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes ; 
 
 The level sun, like ruddy ore, 
 Lay sinking in the barren skies. 
 
 And dark against day's golden death 
 
 She moved where Lindis wandereth, 2<> 
 
 My Sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth. 
 
 *'Cusha! Cusha! Cusha! '' calling. 
 Ere the early dews were falling, 
 Farre away I heard her song. 
 ''Cusha! Cusha! "all along 
 Where the reedy Lindis floweth, 
 
 Floweth, floweth; 
 From the meads where melick groweth 
 Faintly came her niilking song — 
 
 " Cusha! Cusha! Cusha! '* calHng, 3a 
 
 '* For the dews will soone be falhng; 
 Leave your meadow grasses mellow 
 
 Mellow, mellow; 
 Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow ; 
 Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, 
 Quit the stalks of parsley hollow. 
 
 Hollow, hollow; 
 Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, 
 
 20. Lindis. The river Witham. 
 2S. Melick. A kind of grass. 
 
32 STORY POEMS 
 
 From the clovers lift your head ; 
 
 Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot, 40 
 
 Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow, 
 
 Jetty, to the milking shed.'' 
 
 If it be long, ay, long ago, 
 When I beginne to think howe long, 
 
 Againe I hear the Lindis flow. 
 
 Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong; 
 
 And all the aire, it seemeth mee, 
 
 Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee). 
 
 That ring the tune of Enderby. 
 
 AUe fresh the level pasture lay 50 
 
 And not a shadowe mote be seene. 
 
 Save where full fyve good miles away 
 The steeple towered from out the greene ; 
 
 And lo ! the great bell f arre and wide 
 
 Was heard in all the country side 
 
 That Saturday at eventide. 
 
 The swanherds where their sedges are 
 Moved on in sunset's golden breath. 
 
 The shepherde lads I heard afarre. 
 
 And my Sonne's wife, Elizabeth ; 60 
 
 Till floating o'er the grassy sea 
 
 Came downe that kyndly message free. 
 
 The *' Brides of Mavis Enderby." 
 
 Then some looked uppe into the sky. 
 And all along where Lindis flows 
 
 To where the goodly vessels lie. 
 And where the lordly steeple shows, 
 
JEAN INGELOW 33 
 
 They sayde, '' And why should this thing be? 
 
 What danger lowers by land or sea ? 
 
 They ring the tune of Enderby ! 70 
 
 " For evil news from Mablethorpe, 
 
 Of pyrate galleys warping downe ; 
 For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe, 
 
 They have not spared to wake the towne: 
 But while the west bin red to see, 
 And storms be none, and pyrates flee, 
 Why ring ' The Brides of Enderby ' ? '' 
 
 I looked without, and lo! my sonne 
 Came riding downe with might and main: 
 
 He raised a shout as he drew on, 80 
 
 Till all the welkin rang again, ' 
 
 ^* Elizabeth! Elizabeth! '' 
 
 (A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath 
 
 Than my Sonne's wife, Elizabeth.) 
 
 " The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe, 
 
 The rising tide comes on apace. 
 And boats adrift in yonder towne 
 
 Go sailing uppe the market-place." 
 He shook as one that looks on death: 
 '* God save you, mother! " straight he saith; 90 
 *' Where is my wife, Elizabeth? " 
 
 " Good Sonne, where Lindis winds away. 
 With her two bairns I marked her long ; 
 
 And ere yon bells beganne to play 
 Afar I heard her milking- song." 
 
34 STORY POEMS 
 
 He looked across the grassy lea, 
 To right, to left, " Ho Enderby! " 
 They rang ** The Brides of Enderby! '' 
 
 With that he cried and beat his breast ; 
 
 Forlo! along the river's bed loo 
 
 A mighty eygre reared his crest, 
 
 And uppe the Lindis raging sped. 
 It swept with thunderous noises loud; 
 Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud. 
 Or like a demon in a shroud. 
 
 And rearing Lindis backward pressed 
 
 Shook all her trembling bankes amaine ; 
 Then madly at the eygre's breast 
 
 Flung uppe her weltering walls again. 
 Then bankes came down with ruin and rout — 
 Then beaten foam ilew round about — iii 
 
 Then all the mighty floods were out. 
 
 So farre, so fast the eygre drave, 
 The heart had hardly time to beat. 
 
 Before a shallow seething wave 
 Sobbed in the grasses at our feet : 
 
 The feet had hardly time to flee 
 
 Before it brake against the knee. 
 
 And all the world was in the sea. 
 
 Upon the roofe we sate that night, 120 
 
 The noise of bells went sweeping by; 
 10 1. Eygre. Tidal wave. 
 
JEAN INGELOW 35 
 
 I marked the lofty beacon light 
 
 Stream from the church tower, red and high — 
 A lurid mark and dread to see ; 
 And awsome bells they were to me, 
 That in the dark rang " Enderby/' 
 
 They rang the sailor lads to guide 
 
 From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed; 
 
 And I — my sonne was at my side, 
 
 And yet the ruddy beacon glowed ; 130 
 
 And yet he moaned beneath his breath, 
 
 *' O come in life, or come in death! 
 
 Olost! my love, Elizabeth.'' 
 
 And didst thou visit him no more ? 
 
 Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare ; 
 The waters laid thee at his doore, 
 
 Ere yet the early dawn was clear. 
 Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace, 
 The lifted sun shone on thy face, 
 Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place. 140 
 
 That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, 
 That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea; 
 
 A fatal ebbe and flow, alas ! 
 
 To manye more than myne and mee : 
 
 But each will mourn his own (she saith) , 
 
 And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath 
 
 Than my Sonne's wife, Elizabeth. 
 
36 STORY POEMS 
 
 I shall never hear her more 
 
 By the reedy Lindis shore, 
 
 '*Cusha! Cusha! Cusha! " calling 150 
 
 Ere the early dews be falling; 
 
 I shall never hear her song, 
 
 " Cusha! Cusha! " all along 
 
 Where the sunny Lindis floweth, 
 
 Goeth, floweth; 
 From the meads where melick groweth 
 When the water winding down, 
 Onward floweth to the town. 
 
 I shall never see her more 
 
 Where the reeds and rushes quiver, 160 
 
 Shiver, quiver; 
 Stand beside the sobbing river. 
 Sobbing, throbbing in its falling 
 To the sandy lonesome shore ; 
 I shall never hear her calling, 
 '* Leave your meadow grasses mellow, 
 
 Mellow, mellow; 
 Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow ; 
 Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot; 
 Quit your pipes of parsley hollow, 170 
 
 Hollow, hollow; 
 Come up Lightfoot, rise and follow; 
 
 Lightfoot, Whitefoot, 
 From your clovers lift the head ; 
 Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow. 
 Jetty, to the milking shed." 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 37 
 
 VIII. HERVE KIEL 
 
 On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, 
 
 Did the English fight the French, — woe to France ! 
 And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, 
 Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, . 
 Came crowding ship on ship to Saint-Malo on the Ranee, 
 With the English fleet in view. 
 
 II 
 
 Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase; 
 First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville; 
 
 Close on him fled, great and small. 
 
 Twenty-two good ships in all ; 10 
 
 And they signalled to the place 
 
 ** Help the winners of a race ! 
 Get us guidance, give us harbour, take us quick, — or, quicker still, 
 
 Here's the English can and will ! '^ 
 
 III 
 
 Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board ; 
 '* Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass ? *' 
 
 laughed they : 
 *' Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and 
 
 scored, — 
 
 5. Ranee. The river which runs into the English Channel at St. 
 Male. 
 
38 STORY POEMS 
 
 Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns, 
 Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, 
 Trust to enter — where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 20 
 
 And with flow at full beside ? 
 
 Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. 
 
 Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
 
 While rock stands and water runs. 
 
 Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 
 
 IV 
 
 Then was called a council straight. 
 
 Brief and bitter the debate : 
 ** Here's the English at our heels ; would you have them take 
 
 in tow 
 All that's left us of the fleet, linked together stem and bow. 
 
 For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 30 
 
 Better run the ships aground ! " 
 
 (Ended Damfreville his speech). 
 
 " Not a minute more to wait ! 
 
 Let the Captains all and each 
 Shove ashore, then blow up, bum the vessels on the beach ! 
 
 France must undergo her fate. 
 
 V 
 
 " Give the word ! " But no such word 
 
 Was ever spoke or heard ; 
 For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid all these 
 — A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate — first, second, third ? 40 
 
 No such man of mark, and meet 
 
 With his betters to compete ! 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 39 
 
 But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville for the fleet, 
 A poor coasting-pilot he, Herve Riel the Croisickese. 
 
 VI 
 
 And " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries Herve Riel: 
 " Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues ? 
 Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell 
 On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 
 Twixt the offing here and Gr^ve where the river disembogues ? 
 Are you bought by English gold ? Is it love the lying's for? 50 
 
 Mom and eve, night and day. 
 
 Have I piloted your bay. 
 Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
 Bum the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty 
 
 Hogues ! 
 Sirs, they know I speak the tmth ! Sirs, believe me there's a way ! 
 
 Only let me lead the line, 
 
 Have the biggest ship to steer. 
 
 Get this Formidable clear. 
 
 Make the others follow mine. 
 And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well, 60 
 
 Right to Solidor past Greve, 
 
 And there lay them safe and sound ; 
 
 And if one ship misbehave, — 
 
 Keel so much as grate the ground. 
 Why, I've nothing but my life, — here's my head! " cries Herve 
 Riel. 
 
 44. Croisickese. Native of Le Croisic, a village at the mouth of 
 the Loire. 
 
 46. Malouins. Natives of St. Malo. 
 
40 STORY POEMS 
 
 VII 
 
 Not a minute more to wait. 
 
 '' Steer us in, then, small and great ! 
 Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! " cried its chief. 
 
 Captains, give the sailor place ! 
 
 He is Admiral, in brief. — 70 
 
 Still the north-wind, by God's grace. 
 
 See the noble fellow's face 
 
 As the big ship, with a bound, 
 
 Clears the entry like a hound. 
 Keeps the passage, as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound 1 
 
 See, safe thro' shoal and rock. 
 
 How they follow in a flock. 
 Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, 
 
 Not a spar that comes to grief ! 
 
 The peril, see, is past. 80 
 
 All are harboured to the last. 
 And just as Herve Riel hollas '* Anchor! " — sure as fate, 
 
 Up the English come, — too late ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 So, the storm subsides to calm : 
 
 They see the green trees wave 
 
 On the heights o'erlooking Gr^ve. 
 
 Hearts that bled are staunched with balm. 
 
 " Just our rapture to enhance, 
 
 Let the English rake the bay. 
 Gnash our teeth and glare askance 90 | 
 
 As they cannonade away ! 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 41 
 
 'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Ranee! " 
 How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's countenance ! 
 
 Out burst all with one accord, 
 
 '' This is Paradise for Hell! 
 
 Let France, let France's King 
 
 Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
 
 What a shout, and all one word, 
 "HerveRiel!" 
 
 As he stepped in front once more, 100 
 
 Not a symptom of surprise 
 
 In the frank blue Breton eyes. 
 
 Just the same man as before. 
 
 IX 
 
 Then said Damfreville, '' My friend, 
 I must speak out at the end. 
 Though I find the speaking hard. 
 Praise is deeper than the lips : 
 You have saved the King his ships, 
 You must name your own reward. 
 'Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! no 
 
 Demand whate'er you will, 
 France remains your debtor still. 
 Ask to heart's content and have ! or mv name's not Damfreville." 
 
 Then a beam of fun outbroke 
 On the bearded mouth that spoke. 
 As the honest heart laughed through 
 Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 
 
42 STORY POEMS 
 
 " Since I needs must say my say. 
 
 Since on board the duty's done, 119 
 
 And from Malo roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run ? — 
 
 Since 'tis ask and have, I may — 
 
 Since the others go ashore — 
 
 Come ! A good whole hoHday ! 
 Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore ! " 
 That he asked and that he got, — ^nothing more. 
 
 XI 
 
 Name and deed alike are lost : 
 
 Not a pillar nor a post 
 In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; 
 
 Not a head in white and black 
 
 On a single fishing-smack, 130 
 
 In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 
 All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. 
 
 Go to Paris : rank on rank 
 
 Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
 
 On the Louvre, face and flank 1 
 You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel. 
 
 So, for better and for worse, 
 
 Herve Riel, accept my verse ! 
 In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
 Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife the Belle 
 Aurore ! 140 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 43 
 
 IX. AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 
 
 You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 
 
 A mile or so away, 
 On a little mound. Napoleon 
 
 Stood on our storming day; 
 With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 
 
 Legs wide, arms locked behind. 
 As if to balance the prone brow 
 
 Oppressive with its mind. 
 
 Just as perhaps he mused, *' My plans 
 
 That soar to earth may fall, 10 
 
 Let once my army-leader Lannes 
 
 Waver at yonder wall," — 
 Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 
 
 A rider, bound on bound, 
 Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 
 
 Until he reached the mound. 
 
 Then off there flung in smiling joy. 
 
 And held himself erect. 
 By just his horse's mane, a boy. 
 
 You hardly could suspect — 20 
 
 (So tight he kept his lips compressed. 
 
 Scarce any blood came thro') — 
 You looked twice ere you saw his 'breast 
 
 Was all but shot in two. 
 
44 STORY POEMS 
 
 '' Well/' cried he, " Emperor, by God's grace 
 
 WeVe got you Ratisbon! 
 The Marshal's in the market-place. 
 
 And you'll be there anon 
 To see your flag-bird flap his vans, 
 
 Where I, to heart's desire, 30 
 
 Perched him ! " The Chief's eye flashed, his plans 
 
 Soared up again like fire. 
 
 The Chief's eye flashed; but presently 
 
 Softened itself, as sheathes 
 A film the mother-eagle's eye 
 
 When her bruised eaglet breathes: 
 '' You're wounded! " *' Nay," his soldier's pride 
 
 Touched to the quick, he said: 
 ** I'm killed, sire! " And his Chief beside, 
 
 Smihng, the boy fell dead. 40 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 29. Vans. Wings; another form of " fan." 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 45 
 
 X. HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
 FROM GHENT TO AIX 
 
 I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 
 
 I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 
 
 " Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 
 
 '* Speed 1 '' echoed the wall to us galloping through; 
 
 Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 
 
 And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
 
 Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace 
 
 Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; 
 
 I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
 
 Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 10 
 
 Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit. 
 
 Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 
 
 'Twas moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 
 
 Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; 
 
 At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 
 
 At Diiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be ; 
 
 And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime. 
 
 So Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is time ! " 
 
 At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun. 
 
 And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 
 
 To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past. 
 
 And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last. 
 
 With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
 
 The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray. 
 
46 STORY POEMS 
 
 And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 
 
 For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 
 
 And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 
 
 O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! 
 
 And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 
 
 His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 
 
 By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, " Stay spur! 
 Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her, 
 We'll remember at Aix " — for one heard the quick wheeze 
 Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees. 
 And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank. 
 As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 
 
 So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
 
 Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ! 
 
 The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
 
 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; 40 
 
 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white. 
 
 And " Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight! " 
 
 " How they'll greet us 1 " and all in a moment his roan 
 Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
 And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
 Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate. 
 With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim. 
 And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 
 
 Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall. 
 
 Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 
 
ROBERT BROWNING 47 
 
 Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
 Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; 
 Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise bad or good, 
 Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 
 
 And all I remember is, friends flocking round 
 
 As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground. 
 
 And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
 
 As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine. 
 
 Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 59 
 
 Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
48 STORY POEMS 
 
 XI. THE BALLAD OF AGINCOURT 
 
 Fair stood the wind for France, 
 When we our sails advance, 
 Nor now to prove our chance 
 
 Longer will tarry ; 
 But putting to the main, 
 At Caux, the mouth of Seine, 
 With all his martial train 
 
 Landed King Harry. 
 
 And taking many a fort. 
 
 Furnished in warlike sort, lo 
 
 Coming towards Agincourt 
 
 In happy hour. 
 Skirmishing day by day 
 With those that stopp'd his way. 
 Whereas the General lay 
 
 With all his power. 
 
 Which, in his height of pride, 
 King Henry to deride, 
 His ransome to provide 
 
 Unto him sending: 20 
 
 Which he neglects the while, 
 As from a nation vile, 
 Yet with an angry smile 
 
 Their fall portending. 
 
MICHAEL DRAYTON 49 
 
 And turning to his men. 
 Quoth our brave Henry then, 
 '* Though they to one be ten, 
 
 Be not amazed: 
 Yet have we well begun ; 
 Battles so bravely won 30 
 
 Have ever to the sun 
 
 By fame been raised. 
 
 ** And for my self (quoth he). 
 This my full rest shall be; 
 England ne'er mourn for me. 
 
 Nor more esteem me ; 
 Victor I will remain. 
 Or on this earth lie slain; 
 Never shall she sustain 
 
 Loss to redeem me, 40 
 
 *' Poitiers and Cressy tell, 
 When most their pride did swell. 
 Under our swords they fell; 
 
 No less our skill is. 
 Than when our grandsire great. 
 Claiming the regal seat. 
 In many a warhke feat, 
 
 Lopp'd the French Lilies/' 
 
 The Duke of York so dread 
 The eager vaward led; 50 
 
 With the main Henry sped 
 Among his henchmen. 
 34. Rest, stake or venture; a gambling term. 
 
50 STORY POEMS 
 
 Excester had the rear, 
 A braver man not there. 
 O Lord, how hot they were 
 On the false Frenchmen! 
 
 They now to fight are gone. 
 Armour on armour shone, 
 Drum now to drum did groan. 
 
 To hear was wonder; 60 
 
 That with the cries they make 
 The very earth did shake ; 
 Trumpet to trumpet spake. 
 
 Thunder to thunder. 
 
 Well it thine age became, 
 
 O noble Erpingham ! 
 
 Which didst the signal frame 
 
 To our hid forces ; 
 When from a meadow by, 
 Like a storm, suddenly 70 
 
 The English archery 
 
 Stuck the French horses. 
 
 The Spanish yew so strong. 
 Arrows a cloth-yard long. 
 That like to serpents stung. 
 
 Piercing the weather: 
 None from his fellow starts. 
 But pla5dng manly parts. 
 And like true English hearts 
 
 Stuck close together. 80 
 
MICHAEL DRAYTON 51 
 
 When down their bows they threw, 
 And forth their bilbows drew, 
 And on the French they flew, 
 
 No one was tardy. 
 Arms were from shoulders sent, 
 Scalps to the teeth were rent ; 
 Down the French peasants went — 
 
 Our men were hardy. 
 
 This while our noble King, 
 
 His broadsword brandishing, 90 
 
 Down the French host did fling. 
 
 As to overwhelm it ; 
 And many a deep wound lent. 
 His arms with blood besprent. 
 And many a cruel dent 
 
 Bruised his helmet. 
 
 Glo'ster, that Duke so good, 
 Next of the royal blood. 
 For famous England stood 
 
 With his brave brother : 100 
 
 Clarence in steel so bright. 
 Though but a maiden knight. 
 Yet in that furious fight. 
 
 Scarce such another. 
 
 Warwick in blood did wade, 
 Oxford the foe invade, 
 
 82. Bilbows. Billhooks; properly, swords made at Bilbao. 
 86. Scalps. Skulls; the original sense. 
 
52 STORY POEMS 
 
 And cruel slaughter made, 
 
 Still as they ran up ; 
 Suffolk his axe did ply, 
 Beaumont and Willoughby, no 
 
 Bare them right doughtily, 
 
 Ferrers and Fanhope. 
 
 Upon Saint Crispin's day 
 Fought was this noble fray, 
 Which fame did not delay 
 
 To England to carry. 
 O ! when shall Englishmen 
 With such acts fill a pen? 
 Or England breed again 
 
 Such a King Harry ? 120 
 
 Michael Drayton. 
 
LORD MACAULAY 53 
 
 XII. THE BATTLE OF NASEBY 
 
 By Obadiah Biud-their-kings-in-chains-and-their-nobles-with-links- 
 of-iron, Sergeant in Ireton's Regiment. 
 
 Oh ! wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, 
 With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? 
 
 And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout ? 
 And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread ? 
 
 Oh evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, 
 And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod ; 
 
 For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong 
 Who sate in the high places, and slew the saints of God. 
 
 It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, 
 
 That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine, 10 
 And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair. 
 
 And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine. 
 
 Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword. 
 The General rode along us to form us to the fight. 
 
 When a murmuring sound broke out, and swell'd into a shout, 
 Among the godless horsemen upon the tyrant's right. 
 
 And hark ! like the roar of the billows on the shore. 
 The cry of battle rises along their charging line ! 
 For God ! for the Cause ! for the Church ! for the Laws ! 
 For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of the Rhine 1 20 
 
54 STORY POEMS 
 
 The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums, 
 His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of Whitehall ; 
 
 They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your 
 ranks ; 
 For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall. 
 
 They are here ! They rush on ! We are broken ! We are gone I 
 
 Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. 
 Lord, put forth thy might ! Lord, defend the right ! 
 . Stand back to back, in God's name, and fight it to the last. 
 
 Stout Skippon hath a wound ; the centre hath given ground ; 
 
 Hark ! hark ! — What means the trampling of horsemen on our 
 rear? 30 
 
 Whose banner do I see, boys? Tis he, thank God, 'tis he, boys. 
 
 Bear up another minute : brave Oliver is here. 
 
 Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, 
 Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes. 
 
 Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst, 
 And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes. 
 
 Fast, fast, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide 
 Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar; 
 
 And he — he turns, he flies : — ^shame on those cruel eyes 
 
 That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war 1 40 
 
 Ho ! comrades scour the plain ; and, ere ye strip the slain 
 First give another stab to make your search secure; 
 
 Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broad-pieces and 
 lockets. 
 The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the poor. 
 
LORD MACAULAY 55 
 
 Fools 1 your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay 
 and bold, 
 
 When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day; 
 And to-morrow shall the fox, from her chambers in the rocks, 
 
 Lead forth her tawny cubs to howl above the prey. 
 
 Where be your tongues that late mocked at heaven and hell and 
 fate. 
 And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades, 50 
 Your perfum'd satin clothes, your catches and your oaths. 
 Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your 
 spades ? 
 
 Down, down, for ever down with the mitre and the crown. 
 With the Belial of the Court and the Mammon of the Pope ; 
 
 There is woe in Oxford halls ; there is wail in Durham's stalls : 
 The Jesuit smites his bosom : the Bishop rends his cope. 
 
 And She of the Seven Hills shall mourn her children's ills, 
 
 And tremble when she thinks on the edge of England's sword; 
 And the Kings of earth in fear shall shudder when they hear 
 What the hand of God hath wrought for the Houses and the 
 Word. 60 
 
 Lord Macaulay. 
 
 46. Lemans. Lovers. 
 
 51. Catches. Convivial songs. 
 
 57. She of the Seven Hills. Rome; i.e. the Papacy. 
 
 60. Houses. Parliament. 
 
56 STORY POEMS 
 
 XIII. HAWKE 
 
 In seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, 
 
 When Hawke came swooping from the West, 
 The French King's Admiral with twenty of the line, 
 
 Was sailing forth, to sack us, out of Brest. 
 The ports of France were crowded, the quays of France a-hum 
 With thirty thousand soldiers marching to the drum. 
 For bragging time was over and fighting time was come 
 
 When Hawke came swooping from the West. 
 
 'Twas long past noon of a wild November day 
 
 When Hawke came swooping from the West ; lo 
 
 He heard the breakers thundering in Quiberon Bay 
 
 But he flew the flag for battle, line abreast. 
 Down upon the quicksands roaring out of sight 
 Fiercely beat the storm-wind, darkly fell the night. 
 But they took the foe for pilot and the cannon's glare for light 
 
 When Hawke came swooping from the West. 
 
 The Frenchmen turned like a covey down the wind 
 
 When Hawke came swooping from the West ; 
 One he sank with all hands, one he caught and pinned. 
 
 And the shallows and the storm took the rest. 20 
 
 The guns that should have conquered us they rusted on the shore. 
 The men that would have mastered us they drummed and marched 
 
 no more, 
 For England was England, and a mighty brood she bore 
 
 When Hawke came swooping from the West. 
 
 Sir Henry Newbolt. 
 
\ ■ . 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY 57 
 
 XIV. AFTER BLENHEIM . 
 
 It was a summer evening. 
 
 Old Kaspar^s work was done, 
 And he before his cottage door 
 
 Was sitting in the sun, 
 And by him sported on the green 
 His little grandchild Wilhelmine. 
 
 She saw her brother Peterkin, 
 
 Roll something large and round. 
 Which he beside the rivulet 
 
 In playing there had found; 10 
 
 He came to ask what he had found 
 That was so large and smooth and round. 
 
 Old Kaspar took it from the boy. 
 
 Who stood expectant by ; 
 And then the old man shook his head, 
 
 And with a natural sigh — 
 " Tis some poor fellow's skull,'' said he, 
 " Who fell in the great victory. 
 
 " I find them in the garden, 
 
 For there's many here about ; 20 
 
 And often when I go to plough 
 
 The ploughshare turns them out ! 
 For many thousand men," said he, 
 '* Were slain in that great victory." 
 
58 STORY POEMS 
 
 '' Now tell us what Hwas all about/* 
 
 Young Peterkin he cries: 
 And little Wilhelmine looks up 
 
 With wonder- waiting eyes ; 
 " Now tell us all about the war, 
 And what they fought each other for/' 30 
 
 '' It was the EngUsh," Kaspar cried, 
 '' Who put the French to rout; 
 
 But what they fought each other for 
 I could not well make out. 
 
 But everybody said,*' quoth he, 
 
 " That 'twas a famous victory. 
 
 " My father lived at Blenheim then, 
 
 Yon little stream hard by ; 
 They burnt his dwelling to the ground, 
 
 And he was forced to fly ; 40 
 
 So with his wife and child he fled, 
 Nor had he where to rest his head. 
 
 " With fire and sword the country round 
 
 Was wasted far and wide. 
 And many a childing mother then 
 
 And new-born baby died; 
 But things like that, you know, must be 
 At every famous victory. 
 
 " The}'' say it was a shocking sight. 
 After the field was won; 50 
 
 For many thousand bodies here 
 Lay rotting in the sun ; 
 
CHARLES WOLFE 59 
 
 But things like that, you know, must be 
 After a famous victory. 
 
 " Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won, 
 
 And our good Prince Eugene.*' 
 '' Why, 'twas a very wicked thing! '* 
 
 Said Httle Wilhelmine. 
 " Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he, 
 '' It was a famous victory. 60 
 
 " And everybody praised the Duke 
 
 Who this great fight did win." 
 " But what good came of it at last? " 
 
 Quoth little Peterkin. 
 '' Why, that I cannot tell," said he, 
 " But 'twas a famous victory." 
 
 Robert Southey. 
 
 XV. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE 
 
 Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note. 
 As his corpse to the rampart we hurried ; 
 
 Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot. 
 O'er the grave where our hero we buried. 
 
 We buried him darkly, at dead of night, 
 The sods with our bayonets turning; 
 
 By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, 
 And the lantern dimly burning. 
 
6o STORY POEMS 
 
 No useless coffin enclosed his breast, 
 
 Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him ; lo 
 
 But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, 
 
 With his martial cloak around him. 
 
 Few and short were the prayers we said. 
 
 And we spoke not a word of sorrow ; 
 But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, 
 
 And we bitterly thought of the morrow. 
 
 We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, 
 
 And smoothed down his lonely pillow. 
 That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head. 
 
 And we far away on the billow ! 20 
 
 Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone. 
 And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him; — 
 
 But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on. 
 In a grave where a Briton has laid him. 
 
 But half of our heavy task was done 
 
 'WTien the clock struck the hour for retiring; 
 
 And we heard the distant and random gun 
 That the foe was sullenly firing. 
 
 Slowly and sadly we laid him down. 
 
 From the field of his fame fresh and gory ; 30 
 
 We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone — 
 
 But we left him alone with his glory! 
 
 Charles Wolfe. 
 
RICHARD GLOVER 6i 
 
 XVI. ADMIRAL HOSIER'S GHOST 
 
 As near Porto-Bello ^ lying 
 
 On the gently swelling flood. 
 At midnight with streamers flying, 
 
 Our triumphant navy rode ; 
 There while Vernon sat all-glorious 
 
 From the Spaniard's late defeat ; 
 And his crews, with shouts victorious, 
 
 Drank success to England's fleet : 
 
 On a sudden shrilly sounding, 
 
 Hideous yells and shrieks were heard: la 
 ^ Then each heart with fear confounding, 
 
 A sad troop of ghosts appear'd. 
 All in dreary hammocks shrouded. 
 
 Which for winding-sheets they wore, 
 And with looks by sorrow clouded. 
 
 Frowning on that hostile shore. 
 
 ^ The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically repre- 
 sented, was briefly this. In April, 1726, that commander 
 was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies, 
 to block up the galleons in the ports of that country, or should 
 they presume to come out, to seize and carry them into 
 England: he accordingly arrived at the Bastimentos near 
 Porto-Bello, but being restricted by his orders from obeying 
 the dictates of his courage, lay inactive on that station until 
 he became the jest of the Spaniards: he afterwards moved to 
 Carthagena, and continued cruising in these seas, till far the 
 greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases 
 of that unhealthy climate. This brave man, seeing his best 
 officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to 
 inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, 
 is said to have died of a broken heart. — Richard Glover. 
 
62 , STORY POEMS 
 
 On them gleam'd the moon's wan lustre, 
 
 When the shade of Hosier brave 
 His pale bands was seen to muster, 
 
 Rising from their wat'ry grave: 20 
 
 O'er the glimm'ring wave he hied him. 
 
 Where the Burford rear'd her sail, 
 With three thousand ghosts beside him. 
 
 And in groans did Vernon hail. 
 
 '' Heed, O heed, our fatal story, 
 
 I am Hosier's injur'd ghost. 
 You, who now have purchased glory 
 
 At this place where I was lost ; 
 Though in Porto-Bello's ruin 
 
 You now triumph free from fears, 30 
 
 When you think on our undoing. 
 You will mix your joy with tears. 
 
 *' See these mournful spectres, sweeping 
 
 Ghastly o'er this hated wave. 
 Whose wan cheeks are stain'd with weeping; 
 
 These were English captains brave : 
 Mark those numbers pale and horrid. 
 
 Those were once my sailors bold, 
 Lo ! each hangs his drooping forehead, 
 
 While his dismal tale is told. 40 
 
 '' I, by twenty sail attended, 
 Did this Spanish town affright: 
 
 Nothing then its wealth defended 
 But my orders not to fight : 
 
RICHARD GLOVER 63 
 
 O ! that in this rolling ocean 
 
 I had cast them with disdain, 
 And obey'd my heart's warm motion, 
 
 To have queird the pride of Spain. 
 
 " For resistance I could fear none. 
 
 But with twenty ships had done 50 
 
 What thou, brave and happy Vernon, 
 
 Hast achieved with six alone. 
 Then the Bastimentos never 
 
 Had our foul dishonour seen. 
 Nor the sea the sad receiver 
 
 Of this gallant train had been. 
 
 " Thus, like thee, proud Spain disma5dng. 
 
 And her galleons leading home. 
 Though condemned for disobeying, 
 
 I had met a traitor's doom ; 60 
 
 To have falFn, my country crying 
 
 He has play'd an Enghsh part. 
 Had been better far than dying 
 
 Of a griev'd and broken heart. 
 
 ** Unrepining at thy glory. 
 
 Thy successful arms we hail ; 
 But remember our sad story. 
 
 And let Hosier's wrongs prevail. 
 Sent in this foul clime to languish. 
 
 Think what thousands fell in vain, 70 
 
 Wasted with disease and anguish. 
 
 Not in glorious battle slain. 
 
64 STORY POEMS 
 
 " Hence, with all my train attending 
 
 From their oozy tombs below. 
 Through the hoary foam ascending, 
 
 Here I feed my constant woe: 
 Here the Bastimentos viewing, 
 
 We recall our shameful doom, 
 And our plaintive cries renewing. 
 
 Wander through the midnight gloom. 80 
 
 *' O'er these waves for ever mourning 
 
 Shall we roam depriv'd of rest, 
 If to Britain's shores returning. 
 
 You neglect my just request. 
 After this proud foe subduing. 
 
 When your patriot friends you see. 
 Think on vengeance for my ruin. 
 
 And for England sham'd in me." 
 
 Richard Glover. 
 
 XVn.— THE CAPTAIN 
 
 A Legend of the Navy 
 
 He that only rules by terror 
 
 Doeth grievous wrong. 
 Deep as Hell I count his error. 
 
 Let him hear my song. 
 Brave the Captain was : the seamen 
 
 Made a gallant crew, 
 
LORD TENNYSON 65 
 
 Gallant sons of English freemen, 
 
 Sailors bold and true. 
 But they hated his oppression, 
 
 Stern he was and rash ; 10 
 
 So for every light transgression 
 
 Doom'd them to the lash. 
 Day by day more harsh and cruel 
 
 Seem'd the Captain's mood. 
 Secret wrath like smother 'd fuel 
 
 Burnt in each man's blood. 
 Yet he hoped to purchase glory, 
 
 Hoped to make the name 
 Of his vessel great in story. 
 
 Wheresoever he came. 20 
 
 So they past by capes and islands. 
 
 Many a harbour-mouth, 
 Sailing under palmy highlands 
 
 Far within the South. 
 On a day when they were going 
 
 O'er the lone expanse. 
 In the north, her canvas flowing, 
 
 Rose a ship of France. 
 Then the Captain's colour heighten'd. 
 
 Joyful came his speech : 30 
 
 But a cloudy gladness lighten'd 
 
 In the eyes of each. 
 *' Chase," he said: the ship flew forward. 
 
 And the wind did blow; 
 Stately, lightly, went she Nor'ward, 
 
 Till she near'd the foe. 
 Then they look'd at him they hated. 
 
66 STORY POEMS 
 
 Had what they desired : 
 Mute with folded arms they waited — 
 
 Not a gun was fired. 40 
 
 But they heard the foeman^s thunder 
 
 Roaring out their doom ; 
 All the air was torn in sunder. 
 
 Crashing went the boom, 
 Spars were splintered, decks were shattered. 
 
 Bullets fell like rain ; 
 Over mast and deck were scattered 
 
 Blood and brains of men. 
 Spars were spHnter'd ; decks were broken : 
 
 Every mother*s son — 50 
 
 Down they dropt — ^no word was spoken — 
 
 Each beside his gun. 
 On the decks as they were lying. 
 
 Were their faces grim. 
 In their blood, as they lay dying. 
 
 Did they smile on him. 
 Those in whom he had reliance 
 
 For his noble name 
 With one smile of still defiance 
 
 Sold him unto shame. 60 
 
 Shame and wrath his heart confounded. 
 
 Pale he tum'd and red. 
 Till himself was deadly wounded. 
 
 Falling on the dead. 
 Dismal error ! Fearful slaughter 1 
 
 Years have wandered by. 
 Side by side beneath the water 
 
 Crew and Captain lie; 
 
LORD TENNYSON 67 
 
 There the sunht ocean tosses 
 
 0*er them mouldering, 70 
 
 And the lonely seabird crosses 
 
 With one waft of the wing. 
 
 Lord Tennyson. 
 
 XVIIL THE LADY OF SHALOTT 
 Part I 
 
 On either side the river lie 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 That clothe the wold and meet the sky; 
 And thro' the field the road runs by 
 
 To many-tower'd Camelot ; 
 And up and down the people go, 
 Gazing where the lilies blow. 
 Round an island there below. 
 
 The island of Shalott. 
 
 Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 10 
 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver 
 Thro' the wave that runs for ever 
 By the island in the river 
 
 Flowing down to Camelot. 
 Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 
 Overlook a space of flowers. 
 And the silent isle imbowers 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 7. Blow. Bloom. 
 
68 STORY POEMS 
 
 By the margin, willow- veird, 
 
 Slide the heavy barges trailed 2o 
 
 By slow horses ; and unhail'd 
 
 The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd 
 
 Skimming down to Camelot : 
 But who hath seen her wave her haiid ? 
 Or at the casement seen her stand ? 
 Or is she known in all the land, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott ? 
 
 Only reapers, reaping early 
 
 In among the bearded barley, 
 
 Hear a song that echoes cheerly 30 
 
 From the river winding clearly, 
 
 Down to tower'd Camelot : 
 And by the moon the reaper weary, 
 Piling sheaves in uplands airy. 
 Listening, whispers, '' Tis the fairy 
 
 Lady of Shalott/* 
 
 Part II 
 
 There she weaves by night and day 
 
 A magic web with colours gay. 
 
 She has heard a whisper say, 
 
 A curse is on her if she stay 40 
 
 To look down to Camelot. 
 She knows not what the curse may be. 
 And so she weaveth steadily. 
 And little other care hath she, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 22. Shallop. Small boat; sloop. 
 
LORD TENNYSON 69 
 
 And moving thro* a mirror clear 
 That hangs before her all the year. 
 Shadows of the world appear. 
 There she sees the highway near 
 
 Winding down to Camelot : 50 
 
 There the river eddy whirls, 
 And there the surly village churls, 
 And the red cloaks of market girls, 
 
 Pass onward from Shalott. 
 
 Sometimes a troop of damsels glad. 
 An abbot on an ambling pad. 
 Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad. 
 Or long-hair *d page in crimson clad. 
 
 Goes by to tower'd Camelot ; 
 And sometimes thro' the mirror blue 60 
 
 The knights come riding two and two : 
 She hath no loyal knight and true, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 But in her web she still delights 
 To weave the mirror's magic sights. 
 For often thro' the silent nights 
 A funeral, with plumes and lights 
 
 And music, went to Camelot : 
 Or when the moon was overhead. 
 Came two young lovers lately wed ; 70 
 
 *' I am half sick of shadows," said 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 56. Pad. Road horse; pad means path. 
 
70 STORY POEMS 
 
 Part III 
 
 A bow-shot from her bower-eaves. 
 He rode between the barley-sheaves, 
 The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves. 
 And flamed upon the brazen greaves 
 
 Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
 A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd 
 To a lady in his shield. 
 That sparkled on the yellow field, 80 
 
 Beside remote Shalott. 
 
 The gemmy bridle glittered free. 
 Like to some branch of stars we see 
 Hung in the golden Galaxy. 
 The bridle bells rang merrily 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot : 
 And from his blazoned baldric slung 
 A mighty silver bugle hung. 
 And as he rode his armour rung. 
 
 Beside remote Shalott. 90 
 
 All in the blue unclouded weather 
 Thick-jeweird shone the saddle leather. 
 The helmet and the helmet-feather 
 Burn'd like one burning flame together, 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot. 
 As often thro' the purple night. 
 Below the starry clusters bright, 
 Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 
 
 Moves over still Shalott. 
 87. Blazon' d baldric. Belt adorned with heraldic devices. 
 
LORD TENNYSON 71 
 
 His broad clear brow in sunlight glow*d ; 100 
 On burnished hooves his war-horse trode; 
 From underneath his helmet flowed 
 His coal-black curls as on he rode, 
 
 As he rode down to Camelot. 
 From the bank and from the river 
 He flashed into the crystal mirror, 
 ** Tirra lirra,'* by the river 
 
 Sang Sir Lancelot. 
 
 She left the web, she left the loom, 
 
 She made three paces thro' the room, no 
 
 She saw the water-lily bloom, 
 
 She saw the helmet and the plume. 
 
 She look'd down to Camelot. 
 Out flew the web and floated wide; 
 The mirror crack'd from side to side; 
 '* The curse is come upon me,*' cried 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Part IV 
 
 In the stormy east-wind straining, 
 
 The pale yellow woods were waning, 
 
 The broad stream in his banks complaining, 
 
 Heavily the low sky raining 121 
 
 Over tower 'd Camelot; 
 Down she came and found a boat 
 Beneath a willow left afloat. 
 And round about the prow she wrote 
 
 The Lady of Shalott, 
 
72 STORY POEMS 
 
 And down the river^s dim expanse 
 
 Like some bold seer in a trance, 
 
 Seeking all his ov/n mischance — 
 
 With a glassy countenance 130 
 
 Did she look to Camelot. 
 And at the closing of the day 
 She loosed the chain, and down she lay; 
 The broad stream bore her far away, 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Lying robed in snowy white 
 That loosely flew to left and right — 
 The leaves upon her falling light — 
 Thro* the noises of the night 
 
 She floated down to Camelot: 140 
 
 And as the boat-head wound along 
 The willowy hills and fields among, 
 They heard her singing her last song. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Heard a carol, mournful, holy, 
 Chanted loudly, chanted lowly. 
 Till her blood was frozen slowly. 
 And her eyes were darken 'd wholly, 
 
 Turn'd to tower'd Camelot; 
 For ere she reach 'd upon the tide 150 
 
 The first house by the water-side. 
 Singing in her song she died. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 Under tower and balcony. 
 By garden-wall and gallery, 
 
A gleaming shape she floated by, 
 Dead-pale between the houses high. 
 
 Silent into Camelot. 
 Out upon the wharfs they came. 
 Knight and burgher, lord and dame, i6o 
 
 And round the prow they read her name, 
 
 The Lady of ShalotL 
 
 Who is this ? and what is here ? 
 And in the lighted palace near 
 Died the sound of royal cheer; 
 And they crossed themselves for fear. 
 
 All the knights at Camelot: 
 But Lancelot mused a little space ; 
 He said, *' She has a lovely face; 
 God in His mercy lend her grace, 170 
 
 The Lady of Shalott/' 
 
 Lord Tennyson. 
 
 I 
 
 XIX. THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 
 
 Come, dear children, let us away; 
 Down and away below ! 
 Now my brothers call from the bay. 
 Now the great winds shoreward blow. 
 Now the salt tides seaward flow ; 
 Now the wild white horses play, 
 Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 
 Children dear, let us away! 
 This way, this way! 
 
74 STORY POEMS 
 
 Call her once before you go — lo 
 
 Call once yet! 
 
 In a voice that she will know: 
 
 *' Margaret! Margaret! " 
 
 Children's voices should be dear 
 
 (Call once more) to a mother's ear: 
 
 Children's voices, wild with pain — 
 
 Surely she will come again ! 
 
 Call her once and come away ; 
 
 This way, this way ! 
 
 " Mother dear, we cannot stay. 20 
 
 The wild white horses foam and fret." 
 
 Margaret! Margaret! 
 
 Come, dear children, come away down ; 
 
 Call no more ! 
 
 One last look at the white-wall'd town, 
 
 And the little grey church on the windy shore. 
 
 Then come down ! 
 
 She will not come though you call all day; 
 
 Come away, come away ! 
 
 Children dear, was it yesterday 30 
 
 We heard the sweet bells over the bay ? 
 
 In the caverns where we lay. 
 
 Through the surf and through the swell. 
 
 The far-off sound of a silver bell ? 
 
 Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep. 
 
 Where the winds are all asleep ; 
 
 Where the spent lights quiver and gleam. 
 
 Where the salt weed sways in the stream. 
 
I 
 
 ATTHEW ARNOLD 75 
 
 Where the sea-beasts, rang'd all round, 
 
 Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground ; 40 
 
 Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, 
 
 Dry their mail and bask in the brine; 
 
 Where great whales come sailing by, 
 
 Sail and sail, with unshut eye. 
 
 Round the world for ever and aye ? 
 
 When did music come this way ? 
 
 Children dear, was it yesterday ? 
 
 Children dear, was it yesterday 
 
 (Call yet once) that she went away ? 
 
 Once she sate with you and me, 50 
 
 On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea. 
 
 And the youngest sate on her knee. 
 
 She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well. 
 
 When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. 
 
 She sigh'd, she looked up through the clear green sea; 
 
 She said: *' I must go, for my kinsfolk pray 
 
 In the little grey church on the shore to-day. 
 
 'Twill be Easter-time in the world — ^ah me ! 
 
 And I lose my poor soul. Merman, here with thee.'' 
 
 I said: *' Go up, dear heart, through the waves; 60 
 
 Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves ! " 
 
 She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay. 
 
 Children dear, was it yesterday ? 
 
 Children dear, were we long alone? 
 '' The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 
 Long prayers," I said, " in the world they say; 
 Come," I said, and we rose through the surf in the bay. 
 We went up the beach, by the sandy down 
 
76 STORY POEMS 
 
 Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-waird town ; 
 
 Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still. 
 
 To the little grey church on the windy hill. 71 
 
 From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers. 
 
 But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. 
 
 We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains, 
 
 And we gaz'd up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 
 
 She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: 
 
 '' Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here! 
 
 Dear heart,'* I said, ** we are long alone. 
 
 The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.** 
 
 But, ah, she gave me never a look, 80 
 
 For her eyes were seaUd to the holy book ! 
 
 Loud prays the priest ; shut stands the door. 
 
 Come away, children, call no more ! 
 
 Come away, come down, call no more ! 
 
 Down, down, down ! 
 Down to the depths of the sea ! 
 She sits at her wheel in the humming town, 
 Singing most joyfully. 
 Hark what she sings: '* O joy, O joy. 
 For the humming street, and the child with its toy ! 90 
 For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; 
 For the wheel where I spun. 
 And the blessed light of the sun.** 
 And so she sings her fill. 
 Singing most joyfully. 
 Till the spindle falls from her hand. 
 And the whizzing wheel stands still. 
 She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, 
 
^. 
 
 ATTHEW ARNOLD 77 
 
 And over the sand at the sea; 
 
 And her eyes are set in a stare ; 100 
 
 And anon there breaks a sigh, 
 
 And anon there drops a tear, 
 
 From a sorrow-clouded eye. 
 
 And a heart sorrow-laden, 
 
 A long, long sigh ; 
 
 For the cold strange eyes of a little Memiaiden, 
 
 And the gleam of her golden hair. 
 
 Come away, away, children ; 
 Come children, come down ! 
 The hoarse wind blows coldly: no 
 
 Lights shine in the town. 
 She will start from her slumber 
 When gusts shake the door; 
 She will hear the winds howling. 
 Will hear the waves roar. 
 We shall see, while above us 
 The waves roar and whirl, 
 A ceiling of amber, 
 A pavement of pearl. 
 
 Singing, *' Here came a mortal, 120 
 
 But faithless was she ! 
 And alone dwell for ever 
 The kings of the sea." 
 
 But, children, at midnight, 
 When soft the winds blow, 
 When clear falls the moonlight , 
 When spring-tides are low : 
 When sweet airs come seaward 
 
78 STORY POEMS 
 
 From heaths starred with broom ; 
 
 And high rocks throw mildly 130 
 
 On the blanched sands a gloom : 
 
 Up the still, glistening beaches. 
 
 Up the creeks we will hie. 
 
 Over banks of bright seaweed 
 
 The ebb-tide leaves dry. 
 
 We will gaze, from the sand-hills. 
 
 At the white, sleeping town ; 
 
 At the church on the hillside — 
 
 And then come back down. 
 
 Singing, '' There dwells a lov'd one, 140 
 
 But cruel is she ! 
 
 She left lonely for ever 
 
 The kings of the sea." 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 XX. JASON'S PLOUGHING 
 
 Jason, with his comrades the Minyae, had sailed in the Argo 
 from Thessaly to Colchis on the Black Sea or Euxine, to win 
 from King Metes the famous Golden Fleece. Jason was set a 
 task. He must first yoke Metes* brazen, fire-breathing bulls, 
 plough with them the War God's field, sow it with serpents' 
 teeth, and garner the strange crop that should grow up. The 
 king's daughter Medea, a potent enchantress, through love for 
 Jason gave him certain charms and directions for their use. 
 
 But down the hall the king passed, who did hold 
 
 Medea's hand, and on a car of gold 
 
 They mounted, drawn anigh the carven door, 
 
 And spearmen of the Colchians went before 
 
 And followed after, and the Minyae 
 
 Set close together followed solemnly. 
 
 Headed by Jason, at the heels of these. 
 
mm 
 
 WII 
 
 ILLIAM MORRIS 79 
 
 So passed they through the streets and palaces 
 Thronged with much folk, and o*er the bridges passed. 
 And to the open country came at last, 10 
 
 Nor there went far, but turning to the right. 
 Into a close they came, where there were dight 
 Long galleries about the fateful stead. 
 Built all of marble fair and roofed with lead, 
 And carved about with stories of old time, 
 Framed all about with golden lines of rhyme. 
 Moreover, midmost was an image made 
 Of mighty Mars who maketh kings afraid. 
 That looked down on an altar builded fair, 
 Wheref rom already did a bright fire glare 20 
 
 And made the hot air glassy with its heat. 
 
 So in the gallery did the king take seat 
 With fair Medea, and the Colchians stood 
 Hedging the twain in with a mighty wood 
 Of spears and axes, while the Minyae 
 Stood off a space the fated things to see. 
 
 Ugly and rugged was that spot of ground. 
 And with an iron wall was closed around. 
 And at the further end a monstrous cage 
 Of iron bars, shut in the stupid rage 30 
 
 Of those two beasts, and therefrom ever came 
 The flashing and the scent of sulphurous flame. 
 As with their brazen, clangorous bellowing 
 They hailed the coming of the Colchian king ; 
 Nor was there one of the seafaring men 
 But trembled, gazing on the deadly pen. 
 But Jason only, who before the rest 
 
 12. Dight. Constructed. 13. Stead, Enclosure. 
 
8o STORY POEMS 
 
 Shone like a star, having upon his breast 
 
 A golden corslet from the treasury 
 
 Of wise King Phineus by the doubtful sea, 40 
 
 By an Egyptian wrought who would not stay 
 
 At Salmydassa more than for a day, 
 
 But on that day the wondrous breast-plate wrought, 
 
 Which, with good will and strong help, Jason bought ; 
 
 And from that treasury his golden shoe 
 
 Came, and his thighs the king's gift covered too; 
 
 But on his head his father's helm was set. 
 
 Wreathed round with bay leaves, and his sword lay yet 
 
 Within the scabbard, while his ungloved hand 
 
 Bore nought within it but an olive wand. 50 
 
 Now King iEetes well beholding him. 
 Fearless of mien and so unmatched of limb. 
 Trembled a little in his heart as now 
 He bade the horn-blowers the challenge blow, 
 But thought, "What strength can help him, or what art. 
 Or which of all the Gods be on his part? *' 
 Impious, who knew not through what doubtful days. 
 E'en from his birth, and perilous rough ways 
 Juno had brought him safely, nor indeed 
 Of his own daughter's quivering lips took heed, 60 
 And restless hands wherein the God so wrought. 
 The wise man seeing her had known her thought. 
 
 Now Jason, when he heard the challenge blow. 
 Across the evil fallow 'gan to go 
 With face beyond its wont in nowise pale. 
 Nor footsteps faltering, if that might avail 
 The doomed man aught ; so to the cage he came, 
 Whose bars now glowed red hot with spouted flame. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS 8i 
 
 In many a place ; nor doubted any one 
 
 Who there beheld him that his days were done, 70 
 
 Except his love alone, and even she, 
 
 Sickening with doubt and terror, scarce could see 
 
 The hero draw the brazen bolt aside 
 
 And throw the glowing wicket open wide. 
 
 But he alone, apart from his desire. 
 Stood unarmed, facing those two founts of fire, 
 Yet feared not aught, for hope and fear were dead 
 Within his heart, and utter hardihead 
 Had Juno set there ; but the awful beasts 
 Beholding now the best of all their feasts, 80 
 
 Roared in their joy and fury, till from sight 
 They and the prince were hidden by the white. 
 Thick rolling clouds of sulphurous pungent smoke. 
 Through which upon the blinded man they broke. 
 
 But when within a ysLvd of him they came, 
 Baified they stopped, still bellowing, and the flame 
 Still spouting out from nostril and from mouth. 
 As from some island mountain in the south 
 The trembling mariners behold it cast ; 
 But still to right and left of him it passed, 90 
 
 Breaking upon him as cool water might. 
 Nor harming more, except that from his sight 
 All corners of the cage were hidden now, 
 Nor knew he where to seek the brazen plough ; 
 As to and fro about the quivering cage 
 The monsters rushed in blind and helpless rage. 
 
 But as he doubted, to his eyes alone 
 Within the place a golden light outshone. 
 Scattering the clouds of smoke, and he beheld 
 
82 STORY POEMS 
 
 Once more the Goddess who his head upheld loo 
 
 In rough Anaurus on that other tide ; 
 
 She, smihng on him, beckoned, and *gan gHde 
 
 With rosy feet across the fearful floor, 
 
 Breathing cool odours round her, till a door 
 
 She opened to him in the iron wall, 
 
 Through which he passed, and found a grisly stall 
 
 Of iron still, and at one end of it. 
 
 By glimmering lamps with greenish flame half lit. 
 
 Beheld the yoke and shining plough he sought ; 
 
 Which, seizing straight, by mighty strength he brought 
 
 Unto the door, nor found the Goddess there, in 
 
 Who in the likeness of a damsel fair, 
 
 Colchian Metharma, through the spearmen passed. 
 
 Bearing them wine, and causeless terror cast 
 
 Into their foolish hearts, nor spared to go 
 
 And 'mid the close seafaring ranks to sow 
 
 Good hope of joyful ending, and then stood 
 
 Behind the maid unseen, and brought the blood 
 
 Back to her cheeks and trembUng Ups and wan. 
 
 With thoughts of things unknown to maid and man. 
 
 Meanwhile upon the foreheads of the twain 121 
 
 Had Jason cast the yoke with little pain. 
 And drove them now with shouts out through the door 
 Which in such guise ne'er had they passed before. 
 For never were they made the earth to till. 
 But rather, feeding fat, to work the will 
 Of some all-knowing man ; but now they went 
 Like any peasant's beasts, tamed by the scent 
 Of those new herbs Medea's hand had plucked. 
 Whose roots from evil earth strange power had sucked. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS 83 
 
 Now in the open field did Jason stand 131 
 
 And to the plough-stilts set his unused hand. 
 And down betwixt them lustily he bent ; 
 Then the bulls drew, and the bright ploughshare sent 
 The loathly fallow up on the right side. 
 Whilst o'er their bellowing shrilly Jason cried: 
 " Draw nigh, O King, and thy new ploughman see. 
 Then mayst thou make me shepherd, too, to thee ; 
 Nor doubt thou, doing so, from out thy flock 
 To lose but one, who ne'er shall bring thee stock, 140 
 Or ram or ewe, nor doubt the grey wolf, King, 
 Wood-haunting bear, dragon, or such like thing. 
 Ah the straight furrow ! how it mindeth me 
 Of the smooth parting of the land-locked sea 
 Over against Eubcea, and this fire 
 Of the fair altar where my joyful sire 
 Will pour out wine to Neptune when I come 
 Not empty-handed back unto my home." 
 
 Such mocks he said; but when the sunlight broke 
 Upon his armour through the sulphurous smoke, 150 
 And showed the lengthening furrow cutting through 
 The ugly fallow as anigh they drew. 
 The joyful Minyae gave a mighty shout; 
 But pale the king sat with brows knit for doubt. 
 Muttering: " Whose counsel hast thou taken, then. 
 To do this thing, which not the best of men 
 Would do unholpen of some sorcery ? 
 Whoso it is, wise were he now to die 
 Ere yet I know him, since for many a day 
 Vainly for death I hope to hear him pray." 160 
 
 145. Fire. Supply " reminds me." 
 
84 STORY PbEMS 
 
 Meanwhile, askance Medea eyed the king, 
 Thinking nought safe until that everything 
 Was finished in the Colchian land, and she 
 No more beheld its shores across the sea; 
 But he, beholding her pale visage, thought 
 Grief like to his such paleness on her brought. 
 And turning to her, said: *' How pale thou art! 
 Let not this first foil go unto thine heart 
 Too deeply, since thou knowest certainly. 
 One way or other this vain fool must die/* 170 
 
 '' Father," she said, *' a doubt is on me still. 
 Some God this is come here our wealth to spill ; 
 Nor is this first thing easier than the rest." 
 Then stammering, she said: ** Were it not best 
 To give him that which he must have at last, 
 Before he slays us? " But ^Eetes cast 
 A sharp glance at her, and a pang shot through 
 His weary heart as half the truth he knew. 
 But for one moment, and he made reply 
 In passionate words: " Then, daughter, let me diet 
 And, ere I die, behold thee led along 181 
 
 A wretched slave to suffer grief and wrong 
 In far-off lands, and Ma. at thy back 
 Nought but a huge flame hiding woe and wrack. 
 Before from out my willing open hand 
 This wonder, and the safeguard of my land 
 A God shall take ; and such this man is not. 
 What 1 dost thou think because his eyes are hot 
 On tender maidens he must be a God ? 
 Or that because firmly this field he trod 190 
 
 172. Spill. Destroy. 183. ^a. The old name of Colchis. 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS 85 
 
 Well-fenced with magic ? Were he like to me. 
 Grey-haired and lean, what Godhead wouldst thou see 
 In such an one? Hold, then, thy peace of this, 
 And thou shalt see thy God full widely miss 
 The mark he aims at, when from out the earth 
 Spring up those brothers of an evil birth/' 
 
 And therewithal he gazed at her, and thought 
 To see the rosy flush by such words brought 
 Across her face ; as in the autumn eve, 
 Just as the sun's last half begins to leave 200 
 
 The shivering world, both east and west are red. — 
 But calm and pale she turned about her head, 
 And said: " My father, neither were these words 
 My words, nor would I struggle with my lords ; 
 Thou art full wise; whatso thine heart would have 
 That do, and heed me not, who fain would save 
 This glory of my kingdom and of thee. 
 But now look up, and soothly thou shalt see 
 Mars' acre tilled: the field is ready then, 
 Bid them bring forth the seed that beareth men." 210 
 
 Again with her last words the shouts out-broke 
 From the seafarers, for, beside the yoke. 
 Before Mars' altar did Prince Jason stand, 
 Holding the wand of olive in his hand, 
 And on the new-turned furrow shone the sun 
 Behind him, and his half-day's work was done. 
 
 And now another marvel : for, behold, 
 As at the furrow's end he slacked his hold 
 Upon the plough-stilts, all the bellowing 
 Wherewith the beasts had made the grim close ring. 
 Fell suddenly, and all the fire died 221 
 
86 STORY POEMS 
 
 That they were wont erewhile to scatter wide 
 From mouth and nostril, and their loins and knees 
 Stiffened, and they grew nought but images 
 Lifelike but lifeless, wonderful but dead, 
 Such as he makes, who many a day hath fed 
 His furnace with the beechwood, when the clay 
 Has grown beneath his deft hands day by day 
 And all is ready for the casting, then 
 Such things as these he makes for royal men. 230 
 
 But 'mid the shouts turned Jason to the king, 
 And said: " Fair sir, behold a wondrous thing. 
 And since these beasts have been content to stay 
 Before Mars' altar, from this very day 
 His should they be if they were mine to give." 
 
 " O Jason," said the kmg, '' well mayst thou live 
 For many a day, since thou this deed hast done, 
 But for the Gods, not unto any one 
 Will I give gifts ; but let them take from me 
 What once they gave, if so the thing must be, 240 
 But do thou take this sack from out my hand 
 And cast its seed about the new-tilled land. 
 And watch the issue ; and keep words till then, 
 I counsel thee, O luckiest of men." 
 
 Then Jason took the sack, and with It went 
 About that field new turned, and broadcast sent 
 The white teeth scattering, but or ere he came 
 Back to the altar, and the flickering flame. 
 He heard from 'neath the earth a muttered sound 
 That grew and grew, till all that piece of ground 250 
 Swelled into little hillocks, like as where 
 A stricken field was foughten, but that there 
 
WILLIAM MORRIS 87 
 
 Quiet the heroes* bones lie underneath 
 
 The quivering grasses and the dusky heath ; 
 
 But now these heaps the labouring earth upthrew 
 
 About Mars* acre, ever greater grew. 
 
 And still increased the noise, till none could hear 
 
 His fellow speak, and paleness and great fear 
 
 Fell upon all ; and Jason only stood 
 
 As stands the stout oak in the poplar wood 260 
 
 When winds are blowing. 
 
 Then he saw the mounds 
 Bursten asunder, and the muttered sounds 
 Changed into loud strange shouts and warlike clang. 
 As with freed feet at last the earth-born sprang 
 On to the tumbling earth, and the sunlight 
 Shone on bright arms clean ready for the fight. 
 
 But terribly they showed, for through the place 
 Not one there was but had his staring face. 
 With great wide eyes, and lips in a set smile. 
 Turned full on Jason, who, for a short while, 27a 
 Forgot indeed Medea's warning word. 
 And from its golden sheath half drew his sword. 
 But then, remembering all, cried valiantly: 
 " New born ye are — new slain too shall ye be. 
 Take this, and round about it read your doom. 
 And bid them make new dwellings in the tomb, 
 Wherefrom ye came, nor ever should have passed." 
 
 Therewith the ball among the host he cast. 
 Standing to watch what next the folk would do. 
 But he the ball had smitten turned unto 280 
 
 The one who stood by him and like a cup 
 Shattered his head; then the next lifted up 
 
88 STORY POEMS 
 
 His axe and slew the slayer, and straightway 
 Among the rest began a deadly fray. 
 
 No man gave back a foot, no breathing space 
 One took or gave within that dreadful place, 
 But where the vanquished stood there was he slain, 
 And straight the conquering arm was raised again 
 To meet its match and in its turn to fall, 
 No tide was there of fainting and recall, 290 
 
 No quivering pennon o'er their heads to flit. 
 Nor name or eager shout called over it. 
 No groan of pain, and no despairing cry 
 From him who knows his time has come to die, 
 But passionless each bore him in that fight. 
 Scarce otherwise than as a smith might smite 
 On sounding iron or bright glittering brass. 
 
 So, little by little, did the clamour pass 
 As one by one each fell down in his place, 
 Until at last, midmost the bloody space, 300 
 
 One man was left, alive but wounded sore. 
 Who, staring roi^nd about and seeing no more 
 His brothers' spears against him, fixed his eyes 
 Upon the queller of those mysteries. 
 Then dreadfully they gleamed, and with no word. 
 He tottered towards him with uplifted sword. 
 But scarce he made three paces down the field. 
 Ere chill death reached his heart, and on his shield 
 Clattering he fell. So satiate of fight 
 Quickly the earth-bom were, and their delight 310 
 With what it fed on perished, and one hour 
 Ripened the deadly fruit of that fell flower. 
 
 William Morris. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON 89 
 
 XXI. THE HEALING OF CONALL CARNACH 
 
 O'er Slieve Few, with noiseless tramping through the heavy- 
 drifted snow, 
 Bealcu, Connacia's champion, in his chariot tracks the foe; 
 Ajid anon far off discemeth, in the mountain-hollow white, 
 ^linger Keth and Conall Carnach mingling, hand to hand in fight. 
 
 Swift the charioteer his coursers urged across the wintry glade ; 
 Hoarse the cry of Keth and hoarser seem'd to come demanding 
 
 aid; 
 But through wreath and swollen runnel ere the car could reach 
 
 anigh, 
 Keth lay dead, and mighty Conall bleeding lay at point to die. 
 
 iVhom beholding spent and pallid, Bealcu exulting cried, 
 
 Oh thou ravening wolf of Uladh, where is now thy northern 
 
 pride? 10 
 
 kVhat can now that crest audacious, what that pale defiant brow, 
 
 3nce the bale-star of Connacia's ravaged fields, avail thee now? " 
 
 * Taunts are for reviling woman ''; faintly Conall made reply: 
 
 * Wouldst thou play the manlier foeman, end my pain and let me 
 
 die. 
 
 2. Bedlcii. Pronounced Bayal-ku. Connacia. Connaught. 
 
 7. Wreath. Snow-drift. lo. Uladh, Ulster; pronounced Ullad. 
 
90 STORY POEMS 
 
 Neither deem thy blade dishonoured that with Keth's a deed it 
 
 share, 
 For the foremost two of Connaught feat enough and fame to 
 
 spare." 
 
 " No, I will not ! bard shall never in Dunseverick Hall make 
 
 boast 
 That to quell one northern riever needed two of Croghan's host. 
 But because that word thou'st spoken, if but life enough remains. 
 Thou shalt hear the wives of Croghan clap their hands above thy 
 
 chains. 20 
 
 " Yea, if life enough but linger, that the leech may make thee 
 
 whole. 
 Meet to satiate the anger that beseems a warrior's soul. 
 Best of leech-craft I'll purvey thee ; make thee whole as healing 
 
 can; 
 And in single combat slay thee, Connaught man to Ulster man." 
 
 Binding him in five-fold fetter, wrists and ankles, wrists and neck. 
 To his car's uneasy litter Bealcu upheaved the wreck 
 Of the broken man and harness ; but he started with amaze 
 When he felt the northern war-mace, what a weight it was to 
 raise. 
 
 Westward then through Breiffny's borders, with his captive and 
 
 his dead, 
 Track'd by bands of fierce applauders, wives and shrieking widows, 
 
 sped; 30 
 
 17. Dunseverick, Carnach's castle in Antrim. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON 91 
 
 iVnd the chained heroic carcass on the fair-green of Moy Slaught 
 asting down, proclaimed his purpose, and bade Lee the leech be 
 ,. brought. 
 
 xe, the gentle-faced physician, from his herb-plot came, and said, 
 ' Healing is with God's permission : health for life's enjoyment 
 
 made: 
 
 ^d though I mine aid refuse not, yet, to speak my purpose plain, 
 the healing art abuse not, making life enure to pain. 
 
 ' But assure me, with the sanction of the mightiest oath ye know, 
 That in case, in this contention, Conall overcome his foe, 
 Itraight departing from the tourney by what path the chief shall 
 
 choose, 
 le is free to take his journey unmolested to the Fews. 40 
 
 ' Swear me further, while at healing in my charge the hero lies, 
 "Tone shall through my fences stealing, work him mischief or 
 
 surprise ; 
 
 50, if God the undertaking but approve, in six months' span 
 )nce again my art shall make him meet to stand before a man." 
 
 xom their god they then attested. Sun and Wind for guarantees, 
 lonall Camach unmolested by what exit he might please, 
 f the victor, should have freedom to depart Connacia's bounds ; 
 /[eantime, no man should intrude him entering on the hospice 
 grounds. * 
 
 "hen his burden huge receiving in the hospice-portal, Lee, 
 Stiffen' d limb by limb relieving with the iron fetter key, 
 
92 STORY POEMS 
 
 As a crumpled scroll unrolFd him, groaning deep, till laid at 
 length, 50 
 
 Wondering gazers might behold him, what a tower he was of 
 strength. 
 
 Spake the sons to one another, day by day, of Bealcu — 
 
 ** Get thee up and spy, my brother, what the leech and northman 
 
 do.'' 
 " Lee, at mixing of a potion: Conall, yet in no wise dead, 
 As on reef of rock the ocean, tosses wildly on his bed." 
 
 "Spy again with cautious peeping; what of Lee and Conall 
 
 now.? '' 
 '* Conall lies profoundly sleeping; Lee beside with placid brow." 
 "And to-day?" "To-day he's risen; pallid as his swathing 
 
 sheet, 
 He has left his chamber's prison, and is walking on his feet." 
 
 "And to-day?" "A ghostly figure on his javelin propp'd he 
 goes." 60 
 
 " And to-day? " "A languid vigour through his larger gesture 
 shows." 
 
 "And to-day?" "The blood renewing mantles all his clear 
 cheek through." 
 
 " Would thy vow had room for rueing, rashly-valiant Bealcu! " 
 
 So with herb and healing balsam, ere the second month was past. 
 Life's additions smooth and wholesome circling through his 
 
 members vast, 
 As you've seen a sere oak burgeon under summer showers and dew, 
 Conall, under his chirurgeon, fill'd and fiourish'd, spread and grew. 
 
5IR SAMUEL FERGUSON 93 
 
 * I can bear the sight no longer: I have watch'd him moon by 
 
 moon: 
 3ay by day the chief grows stronger : giant-strong he will be soon. 
 ) my sire, rash- valiant warrior! but that oaths have built the 
 
 wall, 70 
 
 )Oon these feet should leap the barrier: soon this hand thy fate 
 
 forestall." 
 
 ' Brother, have the wish thou'st uttered; we have sworn, so let 
 
 it be; 
 ?.ut although our feet be fetter'd, all the air is left us free. 
 )ying Keth with vengeful presage did bequeath thee sling and 
 
 ball, 
 ^d the sling may send its message where thy vagrant glances 
 
 fall. 
 
 Forbaid was a master-slinger : Maev, when in her bath she sank, 
 'elt the presence of his finger from the further Shannon bank; 
 
 or he threw by line and measure, practising a constant cast 
 )aily in secluded leisure, till he reached the mark at last. 
 
 Keth achieved a warrior's honour, though 'twas 'mid a woman's 
 band, 80 
 
 k^hen he smote the amorous Conor bowing from his distant stand. 
 it occasion will not fail ye : in the leech's lawn below, 
 pnall at the fountain daily drinks within an easy throw." 
 
 Wherefore cast ye at the apple, sons of mine, with measured 
 
 aim?" 
 He who in the close would grapple, first the distant foe should 
 
 maim. 
 
94 STORY POEMS 
 
 And since Keth, his death-balls casting, rides no more the ridge 
 
 of war, 
 We, against our summer hosting, train us for his vacant car.'* 
 
 '* Wherefore to the rock repairing, gaze ye forth, my children, tell." 
 " 'Tis a stag we watch for snaring, that frequents the leech's well." 
 " I will see this stag, though, truly, small may be my eye's 
 delight." 90 
 
 And he climbed the rock where fully lay the lawn exposed to sight. 
 
 Conall to the green well-margin came at dawn and knelt to drink.. 
 Thinking how a noble virgin by a like green fountain's brink 
 Heard his own pure vows one morning far away and long ago : 
 All his heart to home was turning; and his tears began to flow. 
 
 Clean forgetful of his prison, steep Dunseverick's windy tower 
 Seem'd to rise in present vision, and his own dear lady's bower. 
 Round the sheltering knees they gather, little ones of tendei 
 
 years, — 
 Tell us, mother, of our father — and she answers but with tears. 
 
 Twice the big drops plash'd the fountain. Then he rose, anc 
 turning round, loc^ 
 
 As across a breast of mountain sweeps a whirlwind o'er the grounc^ 
 
 Raced in athlete-feats amazing, swung the war-mace, hurl'd th 
 spear; 
 
 Bealcu, in wonder gazing, felt the pangs of deadly fear. 
 
 Had it been a fabled griffin, suppled in a fasting den, 
 Flash'd its wheeling coils to heaven o'er a wreck of beasts and men 
 Hardly had the dreadful prospect bred his soul more dire alarms 
 Such the fire of Conall's aspect, such the stridor of his arms ! 
 107. Stridor, Clank. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON 95 
 
 " This is fear/' he said^ " that never shook these limbs of mine 
 
 till now. 
 Now I see the mad endeavour; now I mourn the boastful vow. 
 Yet 'twas righteous wrath impelled me; and a sense of manly 
 
 shame no 
 
 From his naked throat withheld me when 'twas offer'd to my aim. 
 
 " Now I see his strength excelling: whence he buys it: what he 
 
 pays : 
 'Tis a God who has a dwelling in the fount, to whom he prays. 
 Thither came he weeping, drooping, till the Well-God heard his 
 
 prayer : 
 Now behold him, soaring, swooping, as an eagle through the air. 
 
 *' O thou God, by whatsoever sounds of awe thy name we know. 
 Grant thy servant equal favour with the stranger and the foe ! 
 Equal grace, 'tis all I covet ; and if sacrificial blood 
 Win thy favour, thou shalt have it on thy very well-brink, God ! 
 
 " What and though I've given pledges not to cross the leech's 
 court.? 120 
 
 Not to pass his sheltering hedges, meant I to his patient's hurt. 
 Thy dishonour meant I never : never meant I to forswear 
 Right divine of prayer wherever Power divine invites to prayer. 
 
 Sun that warm'st me. Wind that fann'st me, ye that guarantee 
 the oath. 
 Make no sign of wrath against me: tenderly ye touch me both. 
 Yea, then, through his fences stealing ere to-morrow's sun shall rise, 
 Well-God ! on thy margin kneeling, I will offer sacrifice." 
 
96 STORY POEMS 
 
 '* Brother, rise, the skies grow ruddy : if we yet would save our sire, 
 Rests a deed courageous, bloody, wondering ages shall admire: 
 Hie thee to the spy-rock's summit; ready there thou'lt find the 
 
 sling; 130 
 
 Ready there the leaden plummet; and at dawn he seeks the 
 
 spring." 
 
 Ruddy dawn had changed to amber: radiant as the yellow day, 
 Conall issuing from his chamber, to the fountain took his way : 
 There, athwart the welling water, like a fallen pillar, spread. 
 Smitten by the bolt of slaughter, lay Connacia's champion dead. 
 
 Call the hosts ! convene the judges ! cite the dead man's children 
 
 both!— 
 Said the judges, " He gave pledges; Sun and Wind; and broke 
 
 the oath. 
 And they slew him: so we've written: let his sons attend our 
 
 'words." 
 
 " Both, by sudden frenzy smitten, fell at sunrise on their swords." 
 
 Then the judges, " Ye who punish man's prevaricating vow, 140 
 Needs not further to admonish : contrite to their will we bow, 
 All our points of promise keeping: safely let the chief go forth." 
 Conall to his chariot leaping, turned his coursers to the north : 
 
 In the Sun that swept the valleys, in the Wind's encircling flight^, 
 Recognising holy allies, guardians of the Truth and Right; 
 While, before his face, resplendent with a firm faith's candid ray, 
 Dazzled troops of foes attendant, bow'd before him on his way. 
 
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON 97 
 
 But the calm physician, viewing where the white neck join'd the 
 
 ear, 
 Said, " It is a slinger's doing: Sun nor Wind was actor here. 
 Yet till God vouchsafe more certain knowledge of his sovereign 
 
 will, 150 
 
 Better deem the mystic curtain hides their wonted demons still. 
 
 " Better so, perchance, than living in a clearer light, like me. 
 But believing where perceiving, bound in what I hear and see ; 
 Force and change in constant sequence, changing atoms, change- 
 less laws; 
 Only in submissive patience waiting access to the Cause." 
 
 Sir Samuel Ferguson. 
 
98 STORY POEMS 
 
 XXII. THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN 
 
 A MAN came slowly from the setting sun, 
 To Forgairs daughter, Einer, in her dun. 
 And found her dyeing cloth with subtle care, 
 And said, casting aside his draggled hair: 
 ** I am Aleel, the swineherd, whom you bid 
 Go dwell upon the sea cliffs, vapour-hid; 
 But now my years of watching are no more.*' 
 
 Then Emer cast the web upon the floor. 
 
 And stretching out her arms, red with the dye, 
 
 Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry. lo 
 
 Looking on her, Aleel, the swineherd, said: 
 " Not any god alive, nor mortal dead, 
 Has slain so mighty armies, so great kings. 
 Nor won the gold that now Cuchulain brings." 
 
 " Why do you tremble thus from feet to crown? " 
 Aleel, the swineherd, wept and cast him down 
 Upon the web-heaped floor, and thus his word: 
 " With him is one sweet-throated like a bird." 
 
 *' Who bade you tell these things? '* and then she 
 
 cried 20 
 
 To those about, " Beat him with thongs of hide 
 
 Cuchulain. Pronounce Cooh6olan. 
 
 2. Dun. Fortified residence of a chief. 
 
I 
 
 W. B. YEATS 99 
 
 And drive him from the door/' And thus it Wcis; 
 And where her son, Finmole, on the smooth grass 
 Was driving cattle, came she with swift feet. 
 And called out to him, '* Son, it is not meet 
 That you stay idling here with flock and herds." 
 
 ** I have long waited, mother, for those words; 
 But wherefore now? " 
 
 '* There is a man to die; 
 You have the heaviest arm under the sky." 30 
 
 " My father dwells among the sea- worn bands. 
 And breaks the ridge of battle with his hands." 
 
 " Nay, you are taller than Cuchulain, son." 
 
 " He is the mightiest man in ship or dun." 
 
 " Nay, he is old and sad with many wars, 
 And weary of the crash of battle cars." 
 
 ** I only ask what way my journey lies. 
 
 For God, who made you bitter, made you wise." 
 
 '' The Red Branch kings a tireless banquet keep, 
 Where the sun falls into the Western deep, 40 
 
 Go there, and dwell on the green forest rim ; 
 But tell alone your name and house to him 
 Whose blade compels, and bid them send you one 
 Who has a like vow from their triple dun." 
 
100 STORY POEMS 
 
 Between the lavish shelter of a wood 
 
 And the grey tide, the Red Branch multitude 
 
 Feasted, and with them old Cuchulain dwelt, 
 
 And his young dear one close beside him knelt, 
 
 And gazed upon the wisdom of his eyes. 
 
 More mournful than the depth of starry skies, 50 
 
 And pondered on the wonder of his days ; 
 
 And all around the harp-string told his praise, 
 
 And Concobar, the Red Branch king of kings. 
 
 With his own fingers touched the brazen strings. 
 
 At last Cuchulain spake, " A young man strays 
 
 Driving the deer along the woody ways. 
 
 I often hear him singing to and fro, 
 
 I often hear the sweet sound of his bow. 
 
 Seek out what man he is.'' 
 
 One went and came. 
 " He bade me let all know he gives his name 60 
 
 At the sword point, and bade me bring him one 
 Who had a like vow from our triple dun.*' 
 
 " I only of the Red Branch hosted now,'* 
 Cuchulain cried, '* have made and keep that vow.'' 
 
 After short fighting in the leafy shade, 
 
 He spake to the young man, ** Is there no maid 
 
 Who loves you, no white arms to wrap you round. 
 
 Or do you long for the dim sleepy ground. 
 
 That you come here to meet this ancient sword? " 
 
 53. Concobar. Connor. 
 
W. B. YEATS loi 
 
 '' The dooms of men are in God's hidden hoard." 70 
 
 '* Your head a while seemed like a woman's head 
 That I loved once.'* 
 
 Again the fighting sped, 
 But now the war rage in Cuchulain woke, 
 And through the other's shield his ,long blade 
 
 broke, 
 And pierced him. 
 
 '' vSpeak before your breath is done." 
 
 " I am Finmole, mighty Cuchulain 's son." 
 
 *' I put you from your pain. I can no more." 
 
 While day its burden on to evening bore, 
 With head bowed on his knees Cuchulain stayed; 
 Then Concobar sent that sweet-throated maid, 80 
 And she, to win him, his grey hair caressed : 
 In vain her arms, in vain her soft white breast. 
 Then Concobar, the subtlest of all men, 
 Ranking his Druids round him ten by ten. 
 Spake thus, " Cuchulain will dwell there and brood. 
 For three days more in dreadful quietude. 
 And then arise, and raving slay us all. 
 Go, cast on him delusions magical, 
 That he may fight the waves of the loud sea." 
 And ten by ten under a quicken tree, 90 
 
 The Druids chaunted, swaying in their hands 
 Tall wands of alder and white quicken wands. 
 90. Quicken tree. Mountain-ash; rowan. 
 
102 STORY POEMS 
 
 In three days* time, Cuchulain with a moan 
 Stood up, and came to the long sands alone: 
 For four days warred he with the bitter tide ; 
 And the waves flowed above him, and he died. 
 
 W. B. Yeats. 
 
 XXIIL LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 
 
 I 
 ** WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms. 
 
 Alone and palely loitering ? 
 The sedge has wither 'd from the lake, 
 
 And no birds sing. 
 
 II 
 
 what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 
 So haggard and so woe-begone ? 
 
 The squirrel's granary is full. 
 And the harvest's done. 
 
 in 
 
 1 see a lily on thy brow 
 
 With anguish moist and fever deW ; lo 
 
 And on thy cheek a fading rose 
 Fast withereth too.*' 
 
 IV 
 
 " I met a lady in the meads, 
 
 Full beautiful — a faery's child; 
 Her hair was long, her foot was light. 
 And her eyes were wild. 
 
JOHN KEATS 103 
 
 I made a garland for her head, 
 And bracelets too, and fragrant zone ; 
 
 She look'd at me as she did love, 
 
 And made sweet moan. 20 
 
 VI 
 
 I set her on my pacing steed. 
 And nothing else saw all day long, 
 
 For sideways would she bend, and sing 
 A faery's song. 
 
 VII 
 
 She found me roots of relish sweet. 
 And honey wild, and manna dew. 
 
 And sure in language strange she said, 
 * I love thee true.' 
 
 VIII 
 
 She took me to her elfin grot. 
 
 And there she wept and sigh'd full sore, 30 
 And there I shut her wild wild eyes 
 
 With kisses four. 
 
 IX 
 
 And there she lulled me asleep. 
 
 And there I dream 'd — ah! woe betide! 
 
 The latest dream I ever dream'd 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
104 STORY POEMS 
 
 I saw pale kings and princes too, 
 
 Pale warriors, death-pale were they all ; 
 
 Who cry*d — ' La Belle Dame Sans Merci 
 Thee hath in thrall! * 40 
 
 XI 
 
 * 
 I saw their starved lips in the gloam 
 
 With horrid warning gaped wide, 
 And I awoke, and found me here 
 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 XII 
 
 And this is why I sojourn here, 
 
 Alone and palely loitering, 
 Though the sedge is withered from the lake, 
 
 And no birds sing." 
 
 John Keats. 
 
 XXIV. LOVE 
 
 All thoughts, all passions, all delights. 
 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame. 
 All are but ministers of Love, 
 And feed his sacred flame. 
 
S. T. COLERIDGE 105 
 
 Oft in my waking dreams do I 
 Live o'er again that happy hour, 
 When midway on the mount I lay, 
 Beside the ruined tower. 
 
 The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene 
 Had blended with the lights of eve ; 10 
 
 And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
 My own dear Genevieve! 
 
 She leant against the armed man. 
 The statue of the armed knight ; 
 She stood and listened to my lay, 
 Amid the lingering light. 
 
 Few sorrows hath she of her own. 
 My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! 
 She loves me best, whene'er I sing 
 
 The songs that make her grieve. 20 
 
 I^played a soft and doleful air, 
 I sang an old and moving story--- 
 An old rude song, that suited well 
 That ruin wild and hoary. 
 
 She listened with a flitting blush, 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace; 
 For well she knew, I could not choose 
 But gaze upon her face. 
 
io6 STORY POEMS 
 
 I told her of the Knight that wore 
 Upon his shield a burning brand; 30 
 
 And that for ten long years he wooed 
 The Lady of the Land. 
 
 I told her how he pined: and ah! 
 The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
 With which I sang another's love, 
 Interpreted my own. 
 
 She listened with a flitting blush, 
 With downcast eyes, and modest grace ; 
 And she forgave me, that I gazed 
 
 Too fondly on her face! 40 
 
 But when I told the cruel scorn 
 That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, 
 And that he crossed the mountain-woods, 
 Nor rested day nor night ; 
 
 That sometimes from the savage den. 
 And sometimes from the darksome shade, 
 And sometimes starting up at once 
 In green and sunny glade, — 
 
 There came and looked him in the face 
 An angel beautiful and bright ; 50 
 
 And that he knew it was a Fiend, 
 This miserable Knight ! 
 
S. T. COLERIDGE 107 
 
 And that unknowing what he did. 
 He leaped amid a murderous band. 
 And saved from outrage worse than death 
 The Lady of the Land! 
 
 And how she wept, and clasped his knees; 
 And how she tended him in vain — 
 And ever strove to expiate 
 
 The scorn that crazed his brain; — 60 
 
 And that she nursed him in a cave; 
 And how his madness went away, 
 When on the yellow forest-leaves 
 A dying man he lay; — 
 
 His dying words — but when I reached 
 That tenderest strain of all the ditty, 
 My faltering voice and pausing harp 
 Disturbed her soul with pity! 
 
 All impulses of soul and sense 
 Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve; 70 
 
 The music and the doleful tale, 
 The rich and balmy eve; 
 
 And hopes, and fears that kindle hope. 
 An undistinguishable throng, 
 And gentle wishes long subdued. 
 Subdued and cherished long! 
 
io8 STORY POEMS 
 
 She wept with pity and dehght, 
 
 She blushed with love, and virgin shame; 
 
 And like the murmur of a dream, 
 
 I heard her breathe my name. 80 
 
 Her bosom heaved — she stepped aside, 
 As conscious of my look she stepped — 
 Then suddenly, with timorous eye 
 She fled to me and wept. 
 
 She half enclosed me with her arms. 
 She pressed me with a meek embrace ; 
 And bending back her head, looked up. 
 And gazed upon my face. 
 
 'Twas partly love, and partly fear, 
 And partly 'twas a bashful art, 90 
 
 That I might rather feel, than see. 
 The swelling of her heart. 
 
 I calmed her fears, and she was calm, 
 And told her love with virgin pride; 
 And so I won my Genevieve, 
 
 My bright and beauteous Bride. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
I 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 109 
 
 XXV. THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 Part I 
 
 A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, 
 And the young winds fed it with silver dew, 
 And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, 
 And closed them beneath the kisses of Night. 
 
 And the Spring arose on the garden fair. 
 Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere ; 
 And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 
 Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 
 
 But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
 In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 10 
 
 Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want 
 As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 
 
 The snowdrop, and then the violet. 
 
 Arose from the ground with warm rain wet. 
 
 And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent 
 
 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument 
 
 Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall. 
 And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 
 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 
 Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 20 
 
no STORY POEMS 
 
 And the Naiad-like lily of the vale. 
 Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale 
 That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
 Through their pavilions of tender green; 
 
 And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, 
 Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
 Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, 
 It was felt like an odour within the sense; 
 
 And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed. 
 Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 30 
 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
 The soul of her beauty and love lay bare: 
 
 And the wand-like lily, which lifted up. 
 As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup. 
 Till the fiery star, which is its eye. 
 Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 
 
 And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose. 
 
 The sweetest flower for scent that blows; 
 
 And all rare blossoms from every clime 
 
 Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 40 
 
 And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
 Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom, 
 With golden and green light, slanting through 
 Their heaven of many a tangled hue, 
 
 i 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY in 
 
 Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, 
 
 And starry river-buds glimmered by, 
 
 And around them the soft stream did glide and dance 
 
 With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. 
 
 And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, 
 Which led through the garden along and across, 50 
 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, 
 Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees. 
 
 Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells 
 
 As fair as the fabulous asphodels, 
 
 And flowerets which, drooping as day drooped too, 
 
 Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, 
 
 To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 
 
 And from this undefiled Paradise 
 
 The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 
 
 Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet 60 
 
 Can first lull, and at last must awaken it). 
 
 When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, 
 As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem. 
 Shone smiling to Heaven, and evdry one 
 Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun; 
 
 For each one was interpenetrated 
 With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
 Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear. 
 Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 
 
112 STORY POEMS 
 
 But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit 70 
 Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, 
 Received more than all, it loved more than ever, 
 Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver: 
 
 For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; 
 Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 
 It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, 
 It desires what it has not, the Beautiful ! 
 
 The light winds which from unsustaining wings 
 Shed the music of many murmurings ; 
 The beams which dart from many a star 80 
 
 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar; 
 
 The plumed insects swift and free. 
 Like golden boats on a sunny sea. 
 Laden with light and odour, which pass 
 Over the gleam of the living grass ; 
 
 The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie 
 Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, 
 Then wander Hke spirits among the spheres. 
 Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 
 
 The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 90 
 
 Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide. 
 In which every sound, and odour, and beam, 
 Move, as reeds in a single stream ; 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 113 
 
 Each and all like ministering angels were 
 For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 
 Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by 
 Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 
 
 And when evening descended from Heaven above, 
 And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, 
 And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, 100 
 And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep. 
 
 And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 
 
 drowned 
 In an ocean of dreams without a sound; 
 Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress 
 The light sand which paves it, consciousness; 
 
 (Only overhead the sweet nightingale 
 
 Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 
 
 And snatches of its Elysian chant 
 
 Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant) ; — 
 
 The Sensitive Plant was the earliest no 
 
 Upgathered into the bosom of rest; 
 A sweet child weary of its deUght, 
 The feeblest and yet the favourite. 
 Cradled within the embrace of Night. 
 
114 STORY POEMS , 
 
 I 
 Part II 
 
 There was a Power in this sweet place. 
 
 An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling Grace 
 
 Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream. 
 
 Was as God is to the starry scheme. 
 
 A Lady, the wonder of her kind. 
 Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind 120 
 
 Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
 Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 
 
 Tended the garden from morn to even: 
 And the meteors of that sublunar Heaven, 
 Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth, 
 Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth ! 
 
 She had no companion of mortal race, 
 But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 
 Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, 
 That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise: 130 
 
 As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake 
 
 Had deserted Heaven while the stars were awake. 
 
 As if yet around her he lingering were, 
 
 Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 
 
 Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed; 
 You might hear by the heaving of her breast, 
 That the coming and going of the wind 
 Brought pleasure there and left passion behind. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 115 
 
 And wherever her aery footstep trod, 
 Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 140 
 
 Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, 
 Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. 
 
 I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
 Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet; 
 I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 
 From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 
 
 She sprinkled bright water from the stream 
 
 On those that were faint with the sunny beam; 
 
 And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 
 
 She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers. 150 
 
 She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
 And sustained them with rods and osier-bands; 
 If the flowers had been her own infants, she 
 Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 
 
 And all killing insects and gnawing worms. 
 And things of obscene and unlovely forms. 
 She bore, in a basket of Indian woof. 
 Into the rough woods far aloof, — 
 
 In a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full, 
 The freshest her gentle hands could pull 160 
 
 For the poor banished insects, whose intent, 
 Although they did ill, was innocent. 
 
ii6 STORY POEMS 
 
 But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris 
 Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss 
 The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
 Make her attendant angels be. 
 
 And many an antenatal tomb, 
 
 Where butterflies dream of the life to come, 
 
 She left clinging round the smooth and dark 
 
 Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 170 
 
 This fairest creature from earliest Spring 
 Thus moved through the garden ministering 
 All the sweet season of Summertide, 
 And ere the first leaf looked brown — she died! 
 
 Part III 
 
 Three days the flowers of the garden fair, 
 Like stars when the moon is awakened, were. 
 Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminous 
 She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 
 
 And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant 
 
 Felt the sound of the funeral chant, 180 
 
 And the steps of the beaters heavy and slow, 
 
 And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low ; 
 
 The weary sound and the heavy breath, 
 And the silent motions of passing death, 
 And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank. 
 Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank ; 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 117 
 
 The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, 
 Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass; 
 From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone. 
 And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. 
 
 The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, igi 
 Like the corpse of her who had been its soul, 
 Which at first was lovely as if in sleep. 
 Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 
 To make men tremble who never weep. 
 
 Swift Summer into the Autumn flowed. 
 And frost in the mist of the morning rode. 
 Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, 
 Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 
 
 The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 200 
 Paved the turf and the moss below. 
 The lihes were drooping, and white, and wan, 
 Like the head and the skin of a dying man. 
 
 And Indian plants, of scent and hue 
 The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 
 Leaf by leaf, day after day, 
 Were massed into the common clay. 
 
 And the leaves, brown, yellow, and grey, and red, 
 And white with the whiteness of what is dead. 
 Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed; 210 
 Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 
 
ii8 STORY POEMS 
 
 And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds, 
 Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds, 
 Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem. 
 Which rotted into the earth with them. 
 
 The water-blooms under the rivulet 
 Fell from the stalks on which they were set ; 
 And the eddies drove them here and there, 
 As the winds did those of the upper air. 
 
 Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks 220 
 Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 
 And the leafless network of parasite bowers 
 Massed into ruin ; and all sweet flowers. 
 
 Between the time of the wind and the snow 
 
 All loathliest weeds began to grow. 
 
 Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, 
 
 Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. 
 
 And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank. 
 And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank. 
 Stretched out its long and hollow shank, 230 
 
 And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 
 
 And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath. 
 Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth. 
 Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue. 
 Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 119 
 
 Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, 
 Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 
 Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, 
 Infecting the winds that wander by. 
 
 And agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mould 240 
 
 Started Hke mist from the wet ground cold; 
 
 Pale, fleshy, as if the deca5dng dead 
 
 With a spirit of growth had been animated! 
 
 Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum. 
 
 Made the running rivulet thick and dumb. 
 
 And at its outlet flags huge as stakes 
 
 Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes. 
 
 And hour by hour, when the air was still. 
 
 The vapours arose which have strength to kill;l|l 
 
 At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, p 250 
 
 At night they were darkness no star could melt. 
 
 And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 
 Crept and flitted in broad noonday 
 Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 
 By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 
 
 The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid. 
 Wept, and the tears within each lid 
 Of its folded leaves, which together grew. 
 Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 
 
120 STORY POEMS 
 
 For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 260 
 By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
 The sap shrank to the root through every pore 
 As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 
 
 For Winter came : the wind was his whip : 
 One choppy finger was on his lip: 
 He had torn the cataracts from the hills 
 And they clanked at his girdle like manacles; 
 
 His breath was a chain which without a sound 
 The earth, and the air, and the water bound; 
 He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne 270 
 By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone. 
 
 Then the weeds which were forms of living death 
 Fled from the frost to the earth beneath. 
 Their decay and sudden flight from frost 
 Was but like the vanishing of a ghost! 
 
 And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
 The moles and the dormice died for want: 
 The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air 
 And were caught in the branches naked and bare. 
 
 First there came down a thawing rain 280 
 
 And its dull drops froze on the boughs again; 
 Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
 Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 121 
 
 And a northern whirlwind, wandering about 
 Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 
 Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy, and stiff. 
 And snapped them off with his rigid griff. 
 
 When Winter had gone and Spring came back 
 The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; 
 But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 
 darnels, 290 
 
 Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 
 Which within its boughs like a Spirit sat. 
 Ere its outward form had known decay, 
 Now felt this change, I cannot say. 
 
 Whether that Lady's gentle mind. 
 No longer with the form combined 
 Which scattered love, as stars do light. 
 Found sadness, where it left delight, 
 
 I dare not guess; but in this life 300 
 
 Of error, ignorance, and strife. 
 Where nothing is, but all things seem, 
 And we the shadows of the dream, 
 
 It is a modest creed, and yet 
 Pleasant if one considers it, 
 To own that death itself must be, 
 Like all the rest, a mockery. 
 
122 STORY POEMS 
 
 That garden sweet, that lady fair. 
 
 And all sweet shapes and odours there, 
 
 In truth have never passed away: 310 
 
 Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they. 
 
 For love, and beauty, and delight. 
 There is no death nor change: their might 
 Exceeds our organs, which endure 
 No light, being themselves obscure. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 XXVI. ARETHUSA 
 
 Arethusa arose 
 
 From her couch of snows 
 In the Acroceraunian mountains, — 
 
 From cloud and from crag. 
 
 With many a jag. 
 Shepherding her bright fountains. 
 
 She leapt down the rocks, 
 
 With her rainbow locks 
 Streaming among the streams; — 
 
 Her steps paved with green i# 
 
 The downward ravine 
 Which slopes to the western gleams; 
 
 And gliding and springing 
 
 She went, ever singing. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 123 
 
 In murmurs as soft as sleep ; 
 
 The Earth seemed to love her. 
 And Heaven smiled above her, 
 
 As she lingered towards the deep. 
 
 II 
 
 Then Alpheus bold. 
 
 On his glacier cold, 20 
 
 With his trident the mountains strook; 
 
 And opened a chasm 
 
 In the rocks — ^with the spasm 
 All Erymanthus shook. 
 
 And the black south wind 
 
 It unsealed behind 
 The urns of the silent snow, 
 
 And earthquake and thunder 
 
 Did rend in sunder 
 The bars of the springs below- 30 
 
 The beard and the hair 
 
 Of the River-god were 
 Seen through the torrent's sweep. 
 
 As he followed the light 
 
 Of the fleet nymph's flight 
 To the brink of the Dorian deep. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! 
 And bid the deep hide me, 
 For he grasps me now by the hair! " 
 
 The loud Ocean heard, 40 
 
 To its blue depth stirred. 
 
124 STORY POEMS 
 
 And divided at her prayer ; 
 
 And under the water 
 
 The Earth's white daughter 
 Fled Uke a sunny beam; 
 
 Behind her descended 
 
 Her billows, unblended 
 With the brackish Dorian stream: — 
 
 Like a gloomy stain 
 
 On the emerald main 50 
 
 Alpheus rushed behind, — 
 
 As an eagle pursuing 
 
 A dove to its ruin 
 Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 
 
 IV 
 
 Under the bowers 
 
 Where the Ocean Powers 
 Sit on their pearled thrones ; 
 
 Through the coral woods 
 
 Of the weltering floods, 
 Over heaps of unvalued stones ; 60 
 
 Through the dim beams 
 
 Which amid the streams 
 Weave a network of coloured light; 
 
 And under the caves, 
 
 Where the shadowy waves 
 Are as green as the forest's night: — 
 
 Outspeeding the shark. 
 
 And the sword-fish dark, 
 
 60. Unvalued. Invaluable; very precious. 
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 125 
 
 Under the Ocean's foam, 
 
 And up through the rifts 70 
 
 Of the mountain cUfts 
 They passed to their Dorian home. 
 
 And now from their fountains 
 
 In Enna's mountains, 
 Down one vale where the morning basks. 
 
 Like friends once parted 
 
 Grown single-hearted. 
 They ply their watery tasks. 
 
 At sunrise they leap 
 
 From their cradles steep 80 
 
 In the cave of the shelving hill; 
 
 At noontide they flow 
 
 Through the woods below 
 And the meadows of asphodel: 
 
 And at night they sleep 
 
 In the rocking deep 
 Beneath the Ortygian shore ; — 
 
 Like spirits that lie 
 
 In the azure sky 
 When they love but Uve no more. 90 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 
 71. Clifts. Cliffs. 
 
126 STORY POEMS 
 
 XXVII. LUCY GRAY: 
 OR Solitude 
 
 Written at Goslar in Germany. It was founded on a 
 circumstance told me by my sister, of a little girl who, not 
 far from Halifax in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snow- 
 storm. Her footsteps were traced by her parents to the middle 
 of the lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, backward 
 or forward, could be traced. The body, however, was found im 
 the canal. 
 
 Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray: 
 And, when I crossed the wild, 
 I chanced to see at break of day 
 The solitary child. 
 
 No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; 
 She dwelt on a wide moor. 
 — The sweetest thing that ever grew 
 Beside a human door! 
 
 You yet may spy the fawn at play. 
 
 The hare upon the green; lo 
 
 But the sweet face of Lucy Gray 
 
 Will never more be seen. 
 
 " To-night will be a stormy night — 
 You to the town must go ; 
 And take a lantern, Child, to light 
 Your mother through the snow." 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 127 
 
 " That, Father! will I gladly do: 
 
 *Tis scarcely afternoon — 
 
 The minster-clock has just struck two, 
 
 And yonder is the moon! *' 20 
 
 At this the Father raised his hook, 
 And snapped a faggot-band ; 
 He plied his work ; — and Lucy took 
 The lantern in her hand. 
 
 Not blither is the mountain roe: 
 With many a wanton stroke 
 Her feet disperse the powdery snow, 
 That rises up hke smoke. 
 
 The storm came on before its time: 
 
 She wandered up and down ; 30 
 
 And many a hill did Lucy climb: 
 
 But never reached the town. 
 
 The wretched parents all that night 
 Went shouting far and mde ; 
 But there was neither sound nor sight 
 To serve them for a guide. 
 
 At day-break on a hill they stood 
 
 That overlooked the moor; 
 
 And thence they saw the bridge of wood, 
 
 A furlong from their door. 40 
 
128 STORY POEMS 
 
 They wept — and, turning homeward, cried, 
 " In heaven we all shall meet *' : 
 — When in the snow the mother spied 
 The print of Lucy's feet. 
 
 Then downwards from the steep hill's edge 
 They tracked the footmarks small ; 
 And through the broken hawthorn hedge, 
 And by the long stone- wall ; 
 
 And then an open field they crossed: 
 
 The marks were still the same ; 50 
 
 They tracked them on, nor ever lost ; 
 
 And to the bridge they came. 
 
 They followed from the snowy bank 
 Those footmarks, one by one. 
 Into the middle of the plank ; 
 And further there were none ! 
 
 — Yet some maintain that to this day 
 
 She is a living child; 
 
 That you may see sweet Lucy Gray 
 
 Upon the lonesome wild, 60 
 
 O'er rough and smooth she trips along, 
 And never looks behind; 
 And sings a solitary song 
 That whistles in the mnd. 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 129 
 
 XXVIIL LAODAMIA 
 
 Written at Rydal Mount. The incident of the trees growing 
 and withering put the subject into my thoughts, and I wrote 
 with the hope of giving it a loftier tone than, so far as I know, 
 has been given to it by any of the Ancients who have treated 
 of it. It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal 
 length I have ever written. [Wordsworth's note.] 
 
 '' With sacrifice before the rising morn 
 Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired; 
 And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn 
 Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required: 
 Celestial pity I again implore ; — 
 Restore him to my sight — great Jove, restore! '* 
 
 So speaking, and by fervent love endowed 
 
 With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands; 
 
 While, like the sun emerging from a cloud, 
 
 Her countenance brightens — and her eye expands; 10 
 
 Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows; 
 
 And she expects the issue in repose. 
 
 O terror! what hath she perceived? — O joy! 
 What doth she look on? — ^whom doth she behold? 
 Her Hero slain upon the beach of Troy ? 
 His vital presence ? his corporeal mould ? 
 It is — ^if sense deceive her not — 'tis He! 
 And a God leads him, winged Mercury! 
 
 £ 
 
130 STORY POEMS 
 
 Mild Hermes spake — and touched her with his wand 
 That calms all fear; '' Such grace hath crowned thy 
 prayer, 20 
 
 Laodamia! that at Jove's command 
 Thy Husband walks the paths of upper air: 
 He comes to tarry with thee three hours* space; 
 Accept the gift, behold him face to face! '* 
 
 Forth sprang the impassioned Queen her Lord to clasp; 
 
 Again that consummation she essayed; 
 
 But unsubstantial Form eludes her grasp 
 
 As often as that eager grasp was made. 
 
 The Phantom parts — but parts to reunite, 
 
 And re-assumes his place before her sight. 30 
 
 *' Protesilaus, lo! thy guide is gone! 
 Confirm, I pray, the vision with thy voice: 
 This is our palace, — yonder is thy throne: 
 Speak, and the floor thou tread'st on will rejoice. 
 Not to appal me have the gods bestowed 
 This precious boon; and blest a sad abode.*' 
 
 " Great Jove, Laodamia! doth not leave 
 
 His gifts imperfect: — Spectre though I be, 
 
 I am not sent to scare thee or deceive; 
 
 But in reward of thy fidelity. 40 
 
 And something also did my worth obtain ; 
 
 For fearless virtue bringeth boundless gain. 
 
 " Thou knowest, the Delphic oracle foretold 
 
 That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 131 
 
 Should die; but me the threat could not withhold: 
 A generous cause a victim did demand ; 
 And forth I leapt upon the sandy plain; 
 A self-devoted chief — by Hector slain.'* 
 
 '* Supreme of Heroes — bravest, noblest, best! 
 
 Thy matchless courage I bewail no more, 50 
 
 Which then, when tens of thousands were deprest 
 
 By doubt, propelled thee to the fatal shore ; 
 
 Thou found'st — and I forgive thee — here thou art — 
 
 A nobler counsellor than my poor heart. 
 
 " But thou, though capable of sternest deed, 
 
 Wert kind as resolute, and good as brave ; 
 
 And he, whose power restores thee, hath decreed 
 
 Thou should'st elude the malice of the grave: 
 
 Redundant are thy locks, thy lips as fair 
 
 As when their breath enriched Thessalian air. 60 
 
 " No Spectre greets me, — no vain Shadow this ; 
 Come, blooming Hero, place thee by my side ! 
 Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss 
 To me, this day, a second time thy bride! *' 
 Jove frowned in heaven: the conscious Parcae threw 
 Upon those roseate lips a Stygian hue. 
 
 ** This visage tells thee that my doom is past; 
 Nor should the change be mourned, even if the joys 
 Of sense were able to return as fast 
 And surely as they vanish. Earth destroys 70 
 
 * 65. ParccB, Fates. 
 
132 STORY POEMS 
 
 Those raptures duly — Erebus disdains: 
 Calni pleasures there abide — majestic pains. 
 
 " Be taught, O faithful Consort, to control 
 Rebellious passion; for the Gods approve 
 The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul; 
 A fervent, not imgovernable, love. 
 Thy transports moderate ; and meekly mourn 
 When I depart, — for brief is my sojourn *' 
 
 *' Ah, wherefore? — Did not Hercules by force 
 
 Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb 80 
 
 Alcestis, a reanimated corse, 
 
 Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom ? 
 
 Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years. 
 
 And iEson stood a youth 'mid youthful peers, 
 
 *' The Gods to us are merciful — and they 
 Yet further may relent; for mightier far 
 Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway 
 Of magic potent over sun and star. 
 Is love, though oft to agony distrest. 
 And though his favourite seat be feeble woman's 
 breast. 90 
 
 '' But if thou goest, I follow " " Peace! " he said,— 
 
 She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered; 
 The ghastly colour from his lips had fled; 
 In his deportment, shape, and mien appeared 
 
 71. Duly. In due course (of time). 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 133 
 
 Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, 
 
 Brought from a pensive though a happy, place. 
 
 He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel 
 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure; 
 
 No fears to beat away — no strife to heal — 
 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure; 100 
 
 Spake of heroic acts in graver mood 
 
 Revived, with finer harmony pursued; 
 
 Of all that is most beauteous — imaged there 
 
 In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, 
 
 An ampler ether, a diviner air. 
 
 And fields invested with purpureal gleams; 
 
 Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day 
 
 Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. 
 
 Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned 
 
 That privilege by virtue. — '* III,'* said he, no 
 
 '* The end of man's existence I discerned, 
 
 Who from ignoble games and revelry 
 
 Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, 
 
 While tears were thy best pastime, day and night; 
 
 " And while my youthful peers before my eyes 
 (Each hero following his peculiar bent) 
 Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise 
 By martial sports, — or, seated in the tent, 
 Chieftains and kings in council were detained; 
 What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. 120 
 
134 STORY POEMS 
 
 *' The wlshed-for wind was given: — I then revolved 
 
 The oracle, upon the silent sea; 
 
 And, if no worthier led the way, resolved 
 
 That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be 
 
 The foremost prow in pressing to the strand, — 
 
 Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. 
 
 " Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang 
 
 When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife! 
 
 On thee too fondly did my memory hang. 
 
 And on the joys we shared in mortal life, — 130 
 
 The paths which we had trod — these fountains, flowers, 
 
 My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers. 
 
 " But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, 
 * Behold they tremble! — ^haughty their array. 
 Yet of their number no one dares to die ' ? 
 In soul I swept the indignity away: 
 Old frailties then recurred: — but lofty thought. 
 In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. 
 
 " And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak 
 
 In reason, in self-government too slow; 140 
 
 I counsel thee by fortitude to seek 
 
 Our blest re-union in the shades below. 
 
 The invisible world with thee hath sympathised ; 
 
 Be thy affections raised and solemnised. 
 
 " Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend — 
 Seeking a higher object. Love was given. 
 Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end; 
 For this the passion to excess was driven — 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 135 
 
 That self might be annulled: her bondage prove 
 
 The fetters of a dream, opposed to love/' — 150 
 
 i 
 
 Aloud she shrieked ! for Hermes re-appears ! 
 
 Round the dear Shade she would have clung — 'tis vain; 
 
 The hours are past — too brief had they been years ; 
 
 And him no mortal effort can detain : 
 
 Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day. 
 
 He through the portal takes his silent way, 
 
 And on the palace floor a Hfeless corse she lay. 
 
 Ah, judge her gently who so deeply loved! 
 
 Her, who, in reason's spite, yet without crime. 
 
 Was in a trance of passion thus removed ; 160 
 
 Delivered from the galling yoke of time 
 
 And these frail elements — to gather flowers 
 
 Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers. 
 
 — Yet tears to human suffering are due; 
 
 And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown 
 
 Are mourned by man, and not by man alone. 
 
 As fondly he believes. — Upon the side 
 
 Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) 
 
 A knot of spiry trees for ages grew 
 
 From out the tomb of him for whom she died; 170 
 
 And ever, when such stature they had gained 
 
 That Ilium's walls were subject to their view, 
 
 The trees' tall summits withered at the sight; 
 
 A constant interchange of growth and blight. 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
 L 
 
136 STORY POEMS 
 
 XXIX. THE HERMIT 
 
 Far in a wild, unknown to public view, 
 From youth to age a reverend hermit grew; 
 The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell, 
 His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well: 
 Remote from man, with God he pass'd the days. 
 Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise. 
 
 A life so sacred, such serene repose, 
 Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rose; 
 That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey. 
 This sprung some doubt of Providence's sway: lo 
 His hopes no more a certain prospect boast. 
 And all the tenour of his soul is lost. 
 So when a smooth expanse receives imprest 
 Calm nature's image on its watery breast, 
 Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow. 
 And skies beneath with answering colours glow: 
 But if a stone the gentle scene divide, 
 Swift ruffling circles curl on every side, 
 And glimmering fragments of a broken sun. 
 Banks, trees, and skies, in thick disorder run. 20 
 
 To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight. 
 To find if books, or swains, report it right, 
 (For yet by swains alone the world he knew, 
 Whose feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew,) 
 He quits his cell; the pilgrim-staff he bore. 
 And fix'd the scallop in his hat before; 
 Then with the sun a rising journey went. 
 Sedate to think, and watching each event. 
 
THOMAS PARNELL 137 
 
 The morn was wasted in the pathless grass. 
 And long and lonesome was the wild to pass; 30 
 But when the southern sun had warm'd the day, 
 A youth came posting o'er a crossing way; 
 His raiment decent, his complexion fair, 
 And soft in graceful ringlets wav'd his hair. 
 Then near approaching, '' Father, hail! '* he cried; 
 ** And hail, my son," the reverend sire replied; 
 Words followed words, from question answer flowed. 
 And talk of various kind deceived the road; 
 Till each with other pleased, and loth to part. 
 While in their age they differ, join in heart: 40 
 
 Thus stands an aged elm in ivy bound, 
 Thus youthful ivy clasps an elm around. 
 
 Now sunk the sun ; the closing hour of day 
 Came onward, mantled o'er with sober grey; 
 Nature in silence bid the world repose; 
 When near the road a stately palace rose: 
 There by the moon through ranks of trees they pass. 
 Whose verdure crown'd their sloping sides of 
 
 grass. 
 It chanc'd the noble master of the dome 
 Still made his house the wandering stranger's home: 
 Yet still the kindness, from a thirst of praise, 51 
 Prov'd the vain flourish of expensive ease. 
 The pair arrive: the liveried servants wait; 
 Their lord receives them at the pompous gate. 
 The table groans with costly piles of food. 
 And all is more than hospitably good. 
 
 L 
 
 38. Deceived. Beguiled. 49. Dome. House. 
 
 50. Still. Always. 
 
138 STORY POEMS 
 
 Then led to rest, the day's long toil they drown. 
 Deep sunk in sleep, and silk, and heaps of down. 
 
 At length 'tis morn, and at the dawn of day, 
 Along the wide canals the zephyrs play ; 
 Fresh o'er the gay parterres the breezes creep, 60 
 And shake the neighbouring wood to banish sleep. 
 Up rise the guests, obedient to the call: 
 An early banquet deck'd the splendid hall ; 
 Rich luscious wine a golden goblet grac'd. 
 Which the kind master forc'd the guests to taste. 
 Then, pleas'd and thankful, from the porch they go; 
 And, but the landlord, none had cause of woe; 
 His cup was vanished; for in secret guise 
 The younger guest purloined the glittering prize. 
 
 As one who spies a serpent in his way, 70 
 
 Glistening and basking in the summer ray. 
 Disordered stops to shun the danger near. 
 Then walks with faintness on, and looks with fear; 
 So seem'd the sire, when, far upon the road. 
 The shining spoil his wily partner show'd. 
 He stopp'd with silence, walk'd with trembhng heart, 
 And much he wished, but durst not ask to part: 
 Murmuring he lifts his eyes, and thinks it hard, 
 That generous actions meet a base reward. 
 
 While thus they pass, the sun his glory shrouds, 80 
 The changing skies hang out their sable clouds ; 
 A sound in air presaged approaching rain. 
 And beasts to covert scud across the plain. 
 Wam'd by the signs, the wandering pair retreat. 
 To seek for shelter at a neighbouring seat. 
 59. Canals, Ornamental waters. 
 
THOMAS PARNELL 139 
 
 'Twas built with turrets, on a rising ground. 
 And strong, and large, and unimproved around; 
 Its owner's temper, timorous and severe. 
 Unkind and griping, caused a desert there. 
 
 As near the miser's heavy doors they drew, 90 
 Fierce rising gusts with sudden fury blew ; 
 The nimble lightning mix'd with showers began. 
 And o'er their heads loud rolling thunder ran. 
 Here long they knock, but knock or call in vain, 
 Driven by the wind, and batter'd by the rain. 
 At length some pity warm'd the master's breast, 
 (Twas then his threshold first receiv'd a guest,) 
 Slow creaking turns the door with jealous care. 
 And half he welcomes in the shivering pair; 
 One frugal faggot lights the naked walls, 100 
 
 And nature's fervour through their limbs recalls: 
 Bread of the coarsest sort, with eager wine, 
 Each hardly granted, serv'd them both to dine; 
 And when the tempest first appear 'd to cease, 
 A ready warning bid them part in peace. 
 With still remark the pondering hermit view'd 
 In one so rich, a life so poor and rude; 
 And why should such, within himself he cried. 
 Lock the lost wealth a thousand want beside ? 
 But what new marks of wonder soon took place no 
 In every settling feature of his face. 
 When from his vest the young companion bore 
 
 102. Eager. Sour; French aigre. 
 106. Still remark. Silent observation. 
 
 111. Settling. Recovering from his surprise. 
 
 112. Vest. Clothes. 
 
140 STORY POEMS 
 
 That cup, the generous landlord own'd before. 
 And paid profusely with the precious bowl 
 The stinted kindness of this churlish soul ! 
 
 But now the clouds in airy tumult fly; 
 The sun emerging opes an azure sky; 
 A fresher green the smelling leaves display. 
 And, glittering as they tremble, cheer the day: 
 The weather courts them from the poor retreat, 120 
 And the glad master bolts the wary gate. 
 
 While hence they walk, the pilgrim's bosom wrought 
 With all the travail of uncertain thought ; 
 His partner's acts without their cause appear, 
 Twas there a vice, and seem'd a madness here: 
 Detesting that, and pitying this, he goes. 
 Lost and confounded with the various shows. 
 
 Now night's dim shades again involve the sky, 
 Again the wanderers want a place to lie. 
 Again they search, and find a lodging nigh : 130 
 
 The soil improv'd around, the mansion neat, 
 And neither poorly low, nor idly great: 
 It seem'd to speak its master's turn of mind, 
 Content, and not for praise, but virtue, kind. 
 
 Hither the walkers turn with weary feet. 
 Then bless the mansion, and the master greet: 
 Their greeting fair bestow'd, with modest guise, 
 The courteous master hears, and thus replies : 
 
 " Without a vain, without a grudging heart. 
 To Him who gives us all, I yield a part ; 140 
 
 From Him you come, for Him accept it here, 
 A frank and sober, more than costly cheer." 
 He spoke, and bid the welcome table spread, 
 
 i 
 
THOMAS PARNELL 141 
 
 Then talk'd of virtue till the time of bed, 
 When the grave household round his hall repair, 
 Warn'd by a bell, and close the hours with prayer. 
 
 At length the world, renew'd by calm repose, 
 Was strong for toil, the dappled morn arose. 
 Before the pilgrims part, the younger crept 
 Near the clos'd cradle where an infant slept, 150 
 
 And writh'd his neck: the landlord's little pride, 
 O strange return ! grew black, and gasp'd, and died. 
 Horror of horrors! what! his only son! 
 How look'd our hermit when the fact was done? 
 Not hell, though hell's black jaws in sunder part, 
 And breathe blue fire, could more assault his heart. 
 
 Confus'd and struck with silence at the deed. 
 He flies, but, trembUng, fails to fly with speed. 
 His steps the youth pursues : the country lay 
 Perplex'd with roads, a servant show'd the way: 160 
 A river cross'd the path ; the passage o'er 
 Was nice to find; the servant trod before: 
 LpOng arms of oaks an open bridge supplied, 
 And deep the waves beneath the bending glide. 
 The youth, who seem'd to watch a time to sin, 
 Approach'd the careless guide, and thrust him in ; 
 Plunging he falls, and rising Hfts his head. 
 Then flashing turns, and sinks among the dead. 
 
 Wild, sparkling rage inflames the father's eyes, 
 He bursts the bands of fear, and madly cries, 170 
 ** Detested wretch! " — but scarce his speech began, 
 When the strange partner seem'd no longer man: 
 
 154. Fact. Deed. 162. Nice. Difficult. 
 
 166. Careless. Unsuspecting. 
 
142 STORY POEMS 
 
 His youthful face grew more serenely sweet; 
 His robe tum'd white, and flowed upon his feet ; 
 Fair rounds of radiant points invest his hair; 
 Celestial odours breathe through purpled air; 
 And wings, whose colours glitter'd on the day. 
 Wide at his back their gradual plumes display. 
 The form ethereal bursts upon his sight, 
 And moves in all the majesty of light. i8o 
 
 Though loud at first the pilgrim's passion grew. 
 Sudden he gaz'd, and wist not what to do ; 
 Surprise in secret chains his words suspends. 
 And in a calm his settling temper ends. 
 But silence here the beauteous angel broke, 
 The voice of music ravished as he spoke. 
 
 ** Thy prayer, thy praise, thy life to vice unknown. 
 In sweet memorial rise before the throne : 
 These charms, success in our bright region find. 
 And force an angel down, to calm thy mind; 190 
 For this commission'd, I forsook the sky. 
 Nay, cease to kneel — thy fellow-sei vant I. 
 
 " Then know the truth of government divine, 
 And let these scruples be no longer thine. 
 
 " The Maker justly claims that world He made. 
 In this the right of Providence is laid; 
 Its sacred majesty through all depends 
 On using second means to work His ends: 
 Tis thus, withdrawn in state from human eye. 
 The Power exerts His attributes on high, 200 
 
 Your actions uses, nor controls your will, 
 
 175. Invest. Clothe. 
 
 198. Second. God Himself being the First Cause of all. 
 
 
THOMAS PARNELL 143 
 
 And bids the doubting sons of men be still. 
 
 '' What strange events can strike with more 
 surprise, 
 Than those which lately struck thy wondering eyes? 
 Yet taught by these, confess th' Almighty just, 
 And where you can't unriddle, learn to trust! 
 
 *' The great, vain man, who far'd on costly food, 
 Whose life was too luxurious to be good ; 
 Who made his ivory stands with goblets shine. 
 And forc'd his guests to morning draughts of wine, 
 Has, with the cup, the graceless custom lost, 211 
 And still he welcomes, but with less of cost. 
 
 " The mean, suspicious wretch, whose bolted door 
 Ne'er mov'd in duty to the wandering poor; 
 With him I left the cup, to teach his mind 
 That heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind. 
 Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl. 
 And feels compassion touch his grateful soul. 
 Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead. 
 With heaping coals of fire upon its head; 220 
 
 In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow, 
 And loose from dross, the silver runs below. 
 
 " Long had our pious friend in \drtue trod. 
 But now the child half-wean'd his heart from God; 
 Child of his age, for him he liv'd in pain. 
 And measured back his steps to earth again. 
 To what excesses had this dotage run! 
 But God, to save the father, took the son. 
 
 219. Artists. Artificers: here means plumbers. 
 222. Silver, The pure silvery metal. 
 227. Had. Would have. 
 
144 STORY POEMS 
 
 To all but thee, in fits he seem'd to go. 
 And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow. 230 
 
 The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust, 
 Now owns in tears the punishment was just. 
 
 " But how had all his fortune felt a wrack, 
 Had that false servant sped in safety back! 
 This night his treasur'd heaps he meant to steal, 
 And what a fund of charity would fail ! 
 
 *' Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er, 
 Depart in peace, resign'd, and sin no more." 
 
 On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew, 
 The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew. 240 
 Thus look'd Elisha, when, to mount on high, 
 His master took the chariot of the sky; 
 The fiery pomp ascending left the view; 
 The prophet gaz'd, and wished to follow too. 
 
 The bending hermit here a prayer begun, 
 " Lord! as in heaven, on earth thy will be done! " 
 Then gladly turning, sought his ancient place, 
 And passed a life of piety and peace. 
 
 Thomas Parnell. 
 
 229. In fits. Everyone else thought the child had died of 
 a fit. 
 
JOHN DRYDEN 145 
 
 XXX. ALEXANDER'S FEAST: 
 OR The Power of Music 
 
 A song in honour of St. Cecilia's Day — 1697. 
 
 Very soon after the publication of his Translation of 
 Virgil, Dryden was requested to furnish an Ode for the festival 
 of St. Cecilia of 1697. He complied with the request, and this 
 great Ode was the result. He is said to have been paid forty 
 pounds for it. A story has been told, on the authority of 
 Lord Bolingbroke, that Dryden sat up the whole of one night, 
 and finished this ode at a sitting. 
 
 TwAS at the royal feast for Persia won 
 By Philip's warlike son: 
 Aloft in awful state 
 The godlike hero sate 
 On his imperial throne; 
 His valiant peers were placed around; 
 Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound: 
 (So should desert in arms be crowned.) 
 The lovely Thais, by his side, 
 Sate like a blooming Eastern bride, 10 
 
 In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 
 Happy, happy, happy pair! 
 None but the brave. 
 None but the brave. 
 None but the brave deserves the fair. 
 
 I. Persia won. The conquest of Persia. 
 
146 STORY PQEMS 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
 
 None but the brave, 
 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave deserves the fair. 
 
 II 
 
 Timotheus, placed on high 20 
 
 Amid the tuneful quire. 
 With flpng fingers touched the lyre: 
 The trembling notes ascend the sky. 
 And heavenly joys inspire. 
 The song began from Jove, 
 Who left his blissful seats above, 
 (Such is the power of mighty love). 
 A dragon's fiery form belied the god: 
 Sublime on radiant spires he rode 
 When he to fair Olympia pressed: 30 
 
 And while he sought her snowy breast, 
 Then round her slender waist he curled. 
 And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the 
 world. 
 The listening crowd admire the lofty sound, 
 A present deity, they shout around ; 
 A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound: 
 With ravished ears, 
 
 28. Belied. Disguised. 
 29. Sublime. Aloft. Spires. Coils. 
 
JOHN DRYDEN 147 
 
 The monarch hears, 
 Assumes the god, 
 
 Affects to nod, 40 
 
 And seems to shake the spheres. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 With ravished ears. 
 The monarch hears, 
 Assumes the god. 
 Affects to nod, 
 And seems to shake the spheres. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung. 
 Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young. 
 The jolly god in triumph comes; 
 Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ; 50 
 
 Flushed with a purple grace 
 He shows his honest face: 
 Now give the hautboys breath ; he comes, he comes. 
 Bacchus, ever fair and young, 
 Drinking joys did first ordain; 
 Bacchus' blessings are a treasure. 
 Drinking is the soldier's pleasure ; 
 Rich the treasure, 
 Sweet the pleasure, 
 Sweet is pleasure after pain. 60 
 
 52. Honest. Handsome. 
 
148 STORY POEMS 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, 
 Drinking is the soldier's pleasure; 
 
 Rich the treasure. 
 
 Sweet the pleasure, 
 Sweet is pleasure after pain. 
 
 IV 
 
 Soothed with the sound the king grew vain ; 
 Fought all his battles o'er again; 
 And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew 
 
 the slain. 
 The master saw the madness rise. 
 His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes; 70 
 
 And while he heaven and earth defied. 
 Changed his hand, and checked his pride. 
 
 He chose a mournful Muse, 
 
 Soft pity to infuse; 
 He sung Darius great and good, 
 
 By too severe a fate. 
 Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen. 
 Fallen from his high estate. 
 And weltering in his blood ; 
 
 Deserted at his utmost need 80 
 
 By those his former bounty fed ; 
 On the bare earth exposed he lies, 
 With not a Inend to close his eyes. 
 With downcast looks the joyless victor sate. 
 
JOHN DRYDEN 149 
 
 Revolving in his altered soul 
 The various turns of chance below; 
 And, now and then, a sigh he stole. 
 And tears began to flow. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Revolving in his altered soul 
 The various turns of chance below; 90 
 
 And, now and then, a sigh he stole, 
 And tears began to flow. 
 
 The mighty master smiled to see 
 That love was in the next degree; 
 Twas but a kindred sound to move. 
 For pity melts the mind to love. 
 Softly sweet, in Lydian measures. 
 Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. 
 War, he sung, is toil and trouble; 
 Honour but an empty bubble; 100 
 
 Never ending, still beginning. 
 
 Fighting still, and still destro3dng: 
 If the world be worth thy winning. 
 
 Think, think it worth enjoying: 
 Lovely Thais sits beside thee. 
 Take the good the gods provide thee. 
 The many rend the skies with loud applause; 
 So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause. 
 The prince, unable to conceal his pain. 
 
 Gazed on the fair no 
 
 Who caused his care, 
 
150 STORY POEMS 
 
 And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 
 Sighed and looked, and sighed again ; 
 At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, 
 The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 The prince, unable to conceal his pain, 
 Gazed on the fair 
 Who caused his care. 
 And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 
 Sighed and looked, and sighed again; 120 
 
 At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, 
 The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 
 
 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 stared around, 130 
 
 Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, 
 See the Furies arise; 
 
 114. At once. At the same time. 
 
 131. Timotheus. A musician of Boeotia, a favourite of Alex- 
 ander the Great; not the great musician, Timotheus, who died 
 before Alexander was born; unless Dryden has confused the 
 two. 
 
JOHN DRYDEN 151 
 
 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, 
 And unburied remain 
 
 Inglorious on the plain: 140 
 
 Give the vengeance due 
 To the valiant crew. 
 Behold how they toss their torches on high, 
 
 How they point to the Persian abodes. 
 And glittering temples of their hostile gods. 
 The princes applaud with a furious joy; 
 And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; 
 Thais led the way. 
 To light him to his prey, 
 And, hke another Helen, fired another Troy. 150 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; 
 
 Thais led the way. 
 
 To hght him to his prey. 
 And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. 
 
 VII 
 
 Thus long ago. 
 Ere heaving bellows learned to blow. 
 While organs yet were mute, 
 Timotheus, to his breathing flute 
 
 And sounding lyre. 
 
152 STORY POEMS 
 
 Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. i6o 
 
 At last divine Cecilia came, 
 
 Inventress of the vocal frame; 
 The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, 
 
 Enlarged the former narrow bounds. 
 
 And added length to solemn sounds, 
 With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. 
 
 Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
 Or both divide the crown: 
 
 He raised a mortal to the skies ; 
 
 She drew an angel down. 170 
 
 GRAND CHORUS 
 
 At last divine Cecilia came, 
 Inventress of the vocal frame; 
 The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store. 
 Enlarged the former narrow bounds. 
 And added length to solemn sounds. 
 With Nature's mother- wit, and arts unknown before. 
 Let old Timotheus yield the prize. 
 
 Or both divide the crown : 
 He raised a mortal to the skies; 
 
 She drew an angel down. 180 
 
 John Dryden. 
 
THOMAS GRAY 153 
 
 XXXI. ON THE DEATH OF A 
 FAVOURITE CAT 
 
 Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes 
 
 On a favourite cat called Selima, that fell into a china tub 
 with gold fishes in it, and was drowned. Walpole, after the 
 death of Gray, placed the china vase on a pedestal at Straw- 
 berry Hill, with a few lines of the Ode for its inscription. 
 
 TwAS on a lofty vase's side, 
 Where China's gayest art had dy'd 
 
 The azure flowers, that blow; 
 Demurest of the tabby kind, 
 The pensive Selima, reclin'd, 
 
 Gaz'd on the lake below. 
 
 Her conscious tail her joy declared; 
 The fair round face, the snowy beard. 
 
 The velvet of her paws. 
 Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 10 
 
 Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, 
 
 She saw; and purr'd applause. 
 
 Still had she gaz'd; but 'midst the tide 
 Two angel forms were seen to glide, 
 
 The Genii of the stream: 
 Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue 
 Through richest purple to the view 
 
 Betray'd a golden gleam. 
 3. Blow. Bloom. 
 
134 STORY POEMS 
 
 The hapless nymph with wonder saw: 
 
 A whisker first, and then a claw, 20 
 
 With many an ardent wish, 
 She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize. 
 What female heart can gold despise ? 
 
 What cat's averse to fish? 
 
 Presumptuous maid! with looks intent 
 Again she stretched, again she bent. 
 
 Nor knew the gulf between. 
 (Malignant Fate sat by, and smiFd) 
 The slipp'ry verge her feet beguil'd, 
 
 She tumbled headlong in. 30 
 
 Eight times emerging from the flood 
 She mew'd to ev'ry watVy God, 
 
 Some speedy aid to send. 
 Nor Dolphin came, nor Nereid stirr'd: 
 Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard. 
 
 A f av'rite has no friend ! 
 
 From hence, ye beauties, undeceived, 
 Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved, 
 
 And be with caution bold. 
 Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes 40 
 And heedless hearts is lawful prize. 
 
 Nor all that glisters, gold. 
 
 Thomas Gray. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 155 
 
 XXXIl. THE NEEDLESS ALARM 
 A Tale 
 
 There is a field through which I often pass, 
 
 Thick overspread with moss and silky grass, 
 
 Adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood. 
 
 Where oft the bitch-fox hides her hapless brood. 
 
 Reserved to solace many a neighbouring squire. 
 
 That he may follow them through brake and brier 
 
 Contusion hazarding of neck or spine. 
 
 Which rural gentlemen call sport divine. 
 
 A narrow brook, by rushy banks concealed. 
 
 Runs in a bottom, and divides the field; 10 
 
 Oaks intersperse it, that had once a head, 
 
 But now wear crests of oven-wood instead; 
 
 And where the land slopes to its watery bourn 
 
 Wide yawns a gulf beside a ragged thorn ; 
 
 Bricks fine the sides, but shivered long ago, 
 
 And horrid brambles intertwine below; 
 
 A hollow scooped, I judge, in ancient time. 
 
 For baking earth, or burning rock to lime. 
 
 Not yet the hawthorn bore her berries red, 
 With which the fieldfare, wintry guest, is fed : 20 
 
 Nor Autumn yet had brushed from every spray. 
 With her chill hand, the mellow leaves away ; 
 But corn was housed, and beans were in the stack; 
 Now therefore issued forth the spotted pack. 
 With tails high mounted, ears hung low, and throats 
 With a whole gamut filled of heavenly notes. 
 
156 STORY POEMS 
 
 For which, alas! my destiny severe, 
 
 Though ears she gave me two, gave me no ear. 
 
 The sun, accompHshing his early march. 
 His lamp now planted on heaven's topmost arch, 30 
 When, exercise and air my only aim. 
 And heedless whither, to that field I came. 
 Ere yet with ruthless joy the happy hound 
 Told hill and dale that Reynard's track was found, 
 Or with the high-raised horn's melodious clang 
 All Kilwick and all Dinglederry rang. 
 
 Sheep grazed the field ; some with soft bosom pressed 
 The herb as soft, while nibbling strayed the rest; 
 Nor noise was heard but of the hasty brook. 
 Struggling, detained in many a petty nook. 40 
 
 All seemed so peaceful, that from them conveyed. 
 To me their peace by kind contagion spread. 
 
 But when the huntsman, with distended cheek, 
 'Gan make his instrument of music speak. 
 And from within the wood that crash was heard. 
 Though not a hound from whom it burst appeared. 
 The sheep recumbent and the sheep that grazed. 
 All huddling into phalanx, stood and gazed. 
 Admiring,, terrified, the novel strain. 
 Then coursed the field around, and coursed it round 
 again; 50 
 
 But recollecting, with a sudden thought 
 That flight in circles urged advanced them nought. 
 They gathered close around the old pit's brink. 
 And thought again — ^but knew not what to think. 
 
 S6. Kilwick and Dinglederry. Two woods belonging to John 
 Throckmorton, Esq. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 157 
 
 The man to solitude accustomed long 
 Perceives in every thing that lives a tongue; 
 Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees 
 Have speech for him, and understood with ease; 
 After long drought, when rains abundant fall. 
 He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all; 60 
 
 Knows what the freshness of their hue implies, 
 How glad they catch the largess of the skies ; 
 But, with precision nicer still, the mind 
 He scans of every locomotive kind; 
 Birds of all feather, beasts of every name, 
 That serve mankind or shun them, wild or tame ; 
 The looks and gestures of their griefs and fears 
 Have all articulation in his ears ; 
 He spells them true by intuition's light, 
 And needs no glossary to set him right. 70 
 
 This truth premised was needful as a text. 
 To win due credence to what follows next. 
 
 Awhile they mused ; surveying every face, 
 Thou hadst supposed them of superior race ; 
 Their periwigs of wool and fears combined 
 Stamped on each countenance such marks of mind, 
 That sage they seemed, as lawyers o'er a doubt. 
 Which, puzzUng long, at last they puzzle out ; 
 Or academic tutors, teaching youths. 
 Sure ne'er to want them, mathematic truths ; 80 
 When thus a mutton stateUer than the rest, 
 A Ram, the ewes and wethers sad addressed: 
 
 ** Friends! we have lived too long. I never heard 
 Sounds such as these, so worthy to be feared. 
 Could I believe, that winds for ages pent 
 
158 STORY POEMS 
 
 In earth's dark womb have found at last a vent. 
 
 And from their prison-house below arise, 
 
 With all these hideous bowlings to the skies, 
 
 I could be much composed, nor should appear, 
 
 For such a cause, to feel the slightest fear. 90 
 
 Yourselves have seen, what time the thunders rolled 
 
 All night, me resting quiet in the fold. 
 
 Or heard we that tremendous bray alone, 
 
 I could expound the melancholy tone ; 
 
 Should deem it by our old companion made. 
 
 The Ass ; for he, we know, has lately strayed, 
 
 And being lost, perhaps, and wandering wide. 
 
 Might be supposed to clamour for a guide. 
 
 But ah I those dreadful yells what soul can fear 
 
 That owns a carcass, and not quake for hear ? 100 
 
 Demons produce them doubtless, brazen-clawed, 
 
 And fanged with brass, the demons are abroad; 
 
 I hold it therefore wisest and most fit 
 
 That, life to save, we leap into the pit." 
 
 Him answered then his loving mate and true, 
 But more discreet than he, a Cambrian Ewe: 
 
 ** How! leap into the pit our life to save? 
 To save our life leap all into the grave ? 
 For can we find it less ? Contemplate first 
 The depth how awful! falling there, we burst: no 
 Or should the brambles interposed our fall 
 In part abate, that happiness were small; 
 For with a race like theirs no chance I see 
 Of peace or ease to creatures clad as we. 
 Meantime, noise kills not. Be it Dapple's bray. 
 Or be it not, or be it whose it may. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 159 
 
 And rush those other sounds, that seem by tongues 
 
 Of demons uttered, from whatever lungs, 
 
 Sounds are but sounds, and, till the cause appear. 
 
 We have at least commodious standing here. 120 
 
 Come fiend, come fury, giant, monster, blast 
 
 From earth or hell, we can but plunge at last." 
 
 While thus she spake, I fainter heard the peals, 
 For Reynard close attended at his heels 
 By panting dog, tired man, and spattered horse. 
 Through mere good fortune took a different course. 
 The flock grew calm again, and I, the road 
 Following, that led me to my own abode. 
 Much wondered that the silly sheep had found 
 Such cause of terror in an empty sound, 130 
 
 So sweet to huntsman, gentleman, and hound. 
 
 MORAL 
 
 Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, 
 Live till to-morrow, will have passed away. 
 
 William Cowper. 
 
 XXXIII. THE COLUBRIAD 
 
 Close by the threshold of a door nailed fast 
 
 Three kittens sat ; each kitten looked aghast. 
 
 I, passing swift and inattentive by. 
 
 At the three kittens cast a careless eye; 
 
 Not much concerned to know what they did there : 
 
 Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care. 
 
i6o STORY POEMS 
 
 But presently a loud and furious hiss 
 
 Caused me to stop, and to exclaim, *' What's this? " ; 
 
 When lo ! upon the threshold met my view, 
 
 With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue, lo ^ 
 
 A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue. 
 
 Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws, 
 
 Darting it full against a kitten's nose; 
 
 Wlio having never seen, in field or house, 
 
 The like, sat still and silent as a mouse; 
 
 Only projecting, with attention due. 
 
 Her whiskered face, she asked him, " Who are you ? '* 
 
 On to the hall went I, with pace not slow, 
 
 But swift as Hghtning, for a long Dutch hoe: 
 
 With which well armed I hastened to the spot, 20 \ 
 
 To find the viper, but I found him not. 
 
 And turning up the leaves and shrubs around. 
 
 Found only that he was not to be found. 
 
 But still the kittens, sitting as before. 
 
 Sat watching close the bottom of the door. 
 
 " I hope," said I, '' the villain I would kill 
 
 Has slipped between the door and the door-sill; 
 
 And if I make despatch, and follow hard. 
 
 No doubt but I shall find him in the yard '': 
 
 For long ere now it should have been rehearsed, 3o| 
 
 Twas in the garden that I found him first. 
 
 E'en there I found him, there the full-grown cat 
 
 His head, with velvet paw, did gently pat ; 
 
 As curious as the kittens erst had been 
 
 To learn what this phenomenon might mean. 
 
 Filled with heroic ardour at the sight. 
 
 And fearing every moment he would bite, 
 
WILLIAM COWPER i6i 
 
 And rob our household of our only cat 
 That was of age to combat with a rat, 
 With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door, 40 
 And taught him never to come there no more. 
 
 William Cowper. 
 
 XXXIV. ON THE DEATH OF 
 MRS. THROCKMORTON'S BULLFINCH 
 
 Ye Nymphs, if e'er your eyes were red 
 With tears o'er hapless favourites shed, 
 
 Oh share Maria's grief! 
 Her favourite, even in his cage 
 (What will not hunger's cruel rage?) 
 
 Assassined by a thief. 
 
 Where Rhenus strays his vines among 
 The egg was laid from which he sprung; 
 
 And though by nature mute, 
 Or only with a whistle blessed, 10 
 
 Well-taught, he all the sounds expressed 
 
 Of flageolet or flute. 
 
 The honours of his ebon poll 
 
 Were brighter than the sleekest mole, 
 
 His bosom of the hue 
 With which Aurora decks the skies. 
 When piping winds shall soon arise 
 
 To sweep away the dew. 
 
 7. Rhenus, Rhine. 
 F 
 
i62 STORY POEMS 
 
 Above, below, in all the house, 
 
 Dire foe alike of bird and mouse, 20 
 
 No cat had leave to dwell ; 
 And Bully's cage supported stood 
 On props of smoothest-shaven wood. 
 
 Large-built and latticed well. 
 
 Well latticed — but the grate, alas ! 
 Not rough with wire of steel or brass. 
 
 For Bully's plumage sake. 
 But smooth with wands from Ouse's side. 
 With which, when neatly peeled and dried. 
 
 The swains their baskets make. 30 
 
 Night veiled the pole; all seemed secure; 
 When, led by instinct sharp and sure, 
 
 Subsistence to provide, 
 A beast forth sallied on the scout, 
 Long-backed, long-tailed, with whiskered 
 snout, 
 
 And badger-coloured hide. 
 
 He, entering at the study door. 
 Its ample area 'gan explore; 
 
 And something in the wind 
 Conjectured, sniffing round and round, 40 
 Better than all the books he found, 
 
 Food chiefly for the mind. 
 
 31. Pole. Sky. 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 163 
 
 Just then, by adverse fate impressed, 
 A dream disturbed poor Bully's rest ; 
 
 In sleep he seemed to view 
 A rat fast clinging to the cage. 
 And screaming at the sad presage, 
 
 Awoke and found it true. 
 
 For, aided both by ear and scent, 
 
 Right to his mark the monster went, — 50 
 
 Ah, Muse! forbear to speak 
 Minute the horrors that ensued; 
 His teeth were strong, the cage was wood, — 
 
 He left poor Bully's beak. 
 
 Oh, had he made that too his prey ! 
 That beak, whence issued many a lay 
 
 Of such mellifluous tone. 
 Might have repaid him well, I wote. 
 For silencing so sweet a throat. 
 
 Fast stuck within his own. 60 
 
 Maria weeps, — the Muses mourn; — 
 So, when by Bacchanalians torn. 
 
 On Thracian Hebrus' side 
 The tree-enchanter Orpheus fell. 
 His head alone remained to tell 
 
 The cruel death he died. 
 
 William Cowper. 
 
i64 STORY POEMS 
 
 XXXV. THE HAUNCH OF VENISON 
 
 A Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare 
 
 Thanks^ my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter 
 
 Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter; 
 
 The haunch was a picture for painters to study, 
 
 The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy. 
 
 Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting 
 
 To spoil such a delicate picture by eating; 
 
 I had thoughts, in my chambers to place it in view. 
 
 To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu ; 
 
 As in some Irish houses, where things are so so. 
 
 One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show : lo 
 
 But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in, 
 
 They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in. 
 
 But hold — let me pause — Don't I hear you pronounce 
 
 This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce } 
 
 Well, suppose it a bounce — sure a poet may try. 
 
 By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly. 
 
 But, my lord, it's no bounce :• I protest in my turn. 
 
 It's a truth — and your Lordship may ask Mr. Byrne. 
 
 To go on with my tale — as I gaz'd on the haunch, 
 
 I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch ; 20 
 
 So I cut it, and sent in to Reynolds undress'd, 
 
 To paint it, or eat it, just as he lik'd best. 
 
 8. Virtii. A curio, antique or other product of Fine Art. 
 
 14. Bounce. Impudent lie. 
 
 18. Mr. Byrne. Lord Clare's nephew. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 165 
 
 Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose ; 
 
 Twas a neck and a breast — that might rival Monroe's : — 
 
 But in parting with these I was puzzled again, 
 
 With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when. 
 
 There's Howard, and Coley, and H rth, and Hiff, 
 
 I think they love venison — I know they love beef; 
 
 There's my countryman Higgins — Oh ! let him alone, 
 
 For making a blunder, or picking a bone. 30 
 
 But hang it — to poets who seldom can eat, 
 
 Your very good mutton's a very good treat ; 
 
 Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt, 
 
 It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt. 
 
 While this I debated, in reverie centred. 
 
 An acquaintance, a friend as he call'd himself, enter'd; 
 
 An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he. 
 
 And he smil'd as he look'd at the venison and me. 
 
 '* What have we got here? — Why this is good eating! 
 
 Your own, I suppose — or is it in waiting ? " 40 
 
 " Why, whose should it be? " cried I with a flounce, 
 
 " I get these things often; " — but that was a bounce: 
 
 " Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation. 
 
 Are pleas'd to be kind — but I hate ostentation." 
 
 " If that be the case, then," cried he, very gay, 
 '^ I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. 
 To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me ; 
 No words — I insist on't — precisely at three : 
 
 24. Monroe. Dorothy Monroe, a celebrated beauty. 
 27. Hiff. Paul Hiffermarj, M.D., a Grub Street writer. 
 
i66 STORY POEMS 
 
 We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there; 
 
 My acquaintance is sHght, or I'd ask my Lord Clare. 50 
 
 And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner 1 
 
 We wanted this venison to make out the dinner. 
 
 What say you — a pasty ? it shall, and it must, 
 
 And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust. 
 
 Here, porter ! — this venison with me to Mile-end ; 
 
 No stirring — I beg — my dear friend — my dear friend ! " 
 
 Thus snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the wind, 
 
 And the porter and eatables followed behind. 
 
 Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, 
 
 ** And nobody with me at sea but myself " ; 60 
 
 Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty. 
 
 Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty, 
 
 Were things that I never disHk'd in my life, 
 
 Though clogged with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife. 
 
 So next day, in due splendour to make my approach, 
 
 I drove to his door in my own hackney-coach. 
 
 When come to the place where we all were to dine, 
 
 (A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine:) 
 
 My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, 
 
 With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come ; 70 
 
 " For I knew it," he cried, " both eternally fail, 
 
 The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale; 
 
 But no matter, I warrant we'll make up the party 
 
 With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. 
 
 ^2. Thrale. Mrs. Thrale, wife of the Southwark brewer, Johnson's 
 close friend from 1765. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 167 
 
 The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, 
 
 They're both of them merry and authors Hke you ; 
 
 The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge; 
 
 Some think he writes Cinna — he owns to PanurgeJ' 
 
 While thus he described them by trade and by name, 
 
 They enter'd, and dinner was serv'd as they came. 80 
 
 At the top a fried Hver and bacon were seen, 
 At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen ; 
 At the sides there was spinach and pudding made hot ; 
 In the middle a place where the pasty — ^was not. 
 Now, my Lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion. 
 And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian ; 
 So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound, 
 While the bacon and liver went merrily round. 
 
 But what vex'd me most was that d 'd Scottish rogue. 
 
 With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue; 90 
 
 And, *' Madam," quoth he, " may this bit be my poison, 
 
 A prettier dinner I never set eyes on ; 
 
 Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curs' d, 
 
 But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst." 
 
 " The tripe," quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, 
 
 " I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week: 
 
 I like these here dinners so pretty and small ; 
 
 But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all." 
 
 ** — Oh ! " quoth my friend, " he'll come on in a trice, 
 
 He's keeping a comer for something that's nice : 100 
 
 79. Cinna . . . Panurge. These were noms de guerre of Dr. W. Scott, 
 Lord Sandwich's chaplain, an active supporter of the Government. 
 
i68 STORY POEMS 
 
 There's a pasty " — ** A pasty! " repeated the Jew, 
 
 " I don't care if I keep a comer for't too." 
 
 " What the de'il, mon, a pasty! " re-echoed the Scot, 
 
 " Though spHtting, I'll still keep a comer for thot/' 
 
 ** We'll all keep a comer/' the lady cried out; 
 
 " We'll all keep a comer/' was echoed about. 
 
 While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd, 
 
 With looks that quite petrified, enter'd the maid ; 
 
 A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, 
 
 Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. no 
 
 But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her ? 
 
 That she came with some terrible news from the baker : 
 
 And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven 
 
 Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven, 
 
 Sad Philomel thus — but let similes drop — 
 
 And now that I think on't, the story may stop. 
 
 To be plain, my good Lord, it's but labour misplaced 
 
 To send such good verses to one of your taste; 
 
 You've got an odd something — a kind of disceming — 
 
 A relish — a taste — sicken'd over by leaming; 120 
 
 At least it's your temper, as very well known. 
 
 That you think very slightly of all that's your own : 
 
 So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss. 
 
 You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH 169 
 
 XXXVI. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF 
 A MAD DOG 
 
 Good people all, of every sort, 
 
 Give ear unto my song; 
 And if you find it wond'rous short, 
 
 It cannot hold you long. 
 
 In Islington there was a man. 
 
 Of whom the world might say, 
 That still a godly race he ran. 
 
 Whene'er he went to pray. 
 
 A kind and gentle heart he had. 
 
 To comfort friends and foes; 10 
 
 The naked every day he clad. 
 
 When he put on his clothes. 
 
 And in that town a dog was found, 
 
 As many dogs there be. 
 Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 
 
 And curs of low degree. 
 
 This dog and man at first were friends; 
 
 But when a pique began. 
 The dog, to gain some private ends. 
 
 Went mad and bit the man. 20 
 
170 STORY POEMS 
 
 Around from all the neighbouring streets 
 The wond'ring neighbours ran, 
 
 And swore the dog had lost his wits, 
 To bite so good a man. 
 
 The wound it seem'd both sore and sad 
 
 To every Christian eye; 
 And while they swore the dog was mad. 
 
 They swore the man would die. 
 
 But soon a wonder came to light. 
 
 That showed the rogues they lied: 30 
 
 The man recover'd of the bite. 
 The dog it was that died. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 1 
 
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 171 
 
 XXXVII. LLYN-Y-DREIDDIAD-VRAWD 
 The Pool of the Diving Friar 
 
 GwENWYNWYN withdrew from the feasts of his hall ; 
 He slept very little^ he prayed not at all ; 
 He pondered; and wandered, and studied alone; 
 And sought, night and day, the philosopher's stone. 
 
 He found it at length, and he made its first proof 
 By turning to gold all the lead of his roof : 
 Then he bought some magnanimous heroes, all fire, 
 Who lived but to smite and be smitten for hire. 
 
 With these, on the plains like a torrent he broke; 
 He filled the whole country with flame and with smoke; 10 
 He killed all the swine, and he broached all the wine ; 
 He drove o£E the sheep, and the beeves, and the kine; 
 
 He took castles and towns ; he cut short limbs and lives ; 
 He made orphans and widows of children and wives : 
 This course many years he triumphantly ran, 
 And did mischief enough to be called a great man. 
 
 When, at last, he had gained all for which he had striven. 
 He bethought him of buying a passport to heaven ; 
 Good and great as he was, yet he did not well know 
 How soon, or which way, his great spirit might go. 20 
 
172 STORY POEMS 
 
 He sought the grey friars, who, beside a wild stream, 
 Refected their frames on a primitive scheme ; 
 The gravest and wisest Gwenwynwyn found out, 
 All lonely and ghostly, and angling for trout. 
 
 Below the white dash of a mighty cascade. 
 Where a pool of the stream a deep resting-place made, 
 And rock-rooted oaks stretched their branches on high. 
 The friar stood musing, and throwing his fly. 
 
 To him said Gwenwynwyn, " Hold, father, here's store. 
 For the good of the church, and the good of the poor " ; 30 
 Then he gave him the stone; but, ere more he could speak, 
 Wrath came on the friar, so holy and meek. 
 
 He had stretched forth his hand to receive the red gold, 
 And he thought himself mocked by Gwenwynwyn the Bold ; 
 And in scorn of the gift, and in rage at the giver. 
 He jerked it immediately into the river. 
 
 Gwenwynwyn, aghast, not a syllable spake; 
 
 The philosopher's stone made a duck and a drake : 
 
 Two systems of circles a moment were seen. 
 
 And the stream smoothed them off, as they never had been. 40 
 
 Gwenwynwyn regained, and uplifted, his voice : 
 
 " Oh friar, grey friar, full rash was thy choice; 
 
 The stone, the good stone, which away thou hast thrown. 
 
 Was the stone of all stones, the philosopher's stone ! " 
 
THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 173 
 
 The friar looked pale, when his error he knew ; 
 The friar looked red, and the friar looked blue ; 
 And heels over head, from the point of a rock, 
 He plunged, without stopping to pull off his frock. 
 
 He dived very deep, but he dived all in vain ; 
 
 The prize he had slighted he found not again : 50 
 
 Many times did the friar his diving renew. 
 
 And deeper and deeper the river still grew. 
 
 Gwenwynwyn gazed long, of his senses in doubt, 
 To see the grey friar a diver so stout : 
 Then sadly and slowly his castle he sought. 
 And left the friar diving, like dabchick distraught. 
 
 Gwenwynwyn fell sick with alarm and despite, 
 
 Died, and went to the devil, the very same night : 
 
 The magnanimous heroes he held in his pay 
 
 Sacked his castle, and marched with the plunder away. 60 
 
 No knell on the silence of midnight was rolled. 
 For the flight of the soul of Gwenwynwyn the Bold : 
 The brethren, unfee'd, let the mighty ghost pass 
 Without praying a prayer, or intoning a mass. 
 
 The friar haunted ever beside the dark stream : 
 
 The philosopher's stone was his thought and his dream ; 
 
 And day after day, ever head under heels. 
 
 He dived all the time he could spare from his meals. 
 
174 STORY POEMS 
 
 He dived, and he dived, to the end of his days, 
 As the peasants oft witnessed with fear and amaze : 700 
 The mad friar's diving-place long was their theme. 
 And no plummet can fathom that pool of the stream. 
 
 And still, when light clouds on the midnight winds ride. 
 If by moonlight you stray on the lone river-side, 
 The ghost of the friar may be seen diving there, 
 With head in the water and heels in the air. 
 
 Thomas Love Peacock. 
 
 XXXVIII. THE BATTLE OF LIMERICK 
 
 Ye Genii of the nation, 
 
 Who look with veneration, 
 And Ireland's desolation onsaysingly deplore ; 
 
 Ye sons of General Jackson, 
 
 Who thrample on the Saxon, 
 Attend to the thransaction upon Shannon shore. 
 
 When William, Duke of Schumbug, 
 
 A tyrant and a humbug. 
 With cannon and with thunder on our city bore, 
 
 Our fortitude and valliance, 
 
 Insthructed his battalions 
 To rispict the gallant Irish upon Shannon shore. 
 
 Since that capitulation. 
 No city in this nation 
 So grand a reputation could boast before, 
 
W. M. THACKERAY 175 
 
 As Limerick prodigious, 
 That stands with quays and bridges, 
 And the ships up to the windies of the Shannon shore. 
 
 A chief of ancient line, 
 
 Tis WilHam Smith O'Brine, 20 
 
 Reprisints this darling Limerick, this ten years or more : 
 
 O the Saxons can't endure 
 
 To see him on the flure, 
 And thrimble at the Cicero from Shannon shore. 
 
 This valliant son of Mars 
 
 Had been to visit Par's, 
 That land of Revolution, that grows the tricolor; 
 
 And to welcome his return 
 
 From pilgrimages furren. 
 We invited him to tay on the Shannon shore. 30 
 
 Then we summoned to our board 
 
 Young Meagher of the Sword ; 
 'Tis he will sheathe that battle-axe in Saxon gore : 
 
 And Mitchil of Belfast 
 
 We bade to our repast. 
 To dthrink a dish of coffee on the Shannon shore. 
 
 Convaniently to hould 
 
 These patriots so bould, 
 We tuck the opportunity of Tim Doolan's store; 
 
 And with omamints and banners 40 
 
 (As becomes gintale good manners) 
 We made the loveliest tay-room upon Shannon shore. 
 
176 STORY POEMS 
 
 'Twould binifit your sowls, 
 
 To see the butthered rowls. 
 The sugar-tongs and sangwidges and craim galyore^ 
 
 And the muffins and the crumpets^ 
 
 And the band of harps and thrumpets, 
 To celebrate the s worry upon Shannon shore. 
 
 Sure the Imperor of Bohay 
 
 Would be proud to dthrink the tay 50 
 
 That Misthress Biddy Rooney for O'Brine did pour; 
 
 And, since the days of Strongbow, 
 
 There never was such Congo — 
 Mitchil dthrank six quarts of it — by Shannon shore. 
 
 But Clamdon and Corry 
 
 Connellan beheld this sworry 
 With rage and imulation in their black hearts' core; 
 
 They hired a gang of ruffins 
 
 To interrupt the muffins 
 And the fragrance of the Congo on the Shannon shore. 60 
 
 When full of tay and cake, 
 
 O'Brine began to spake; 
 But juice a one could hear him, for a sudden roar 
 
 Of a ragamuffin rout 
 
 Began to yell and shout, 
 And frighten the propriety of Shannon shore. 
 
 As Smith O'Brine harangued, 
 They batthered and they banged : 
 Tim Doolan's doors and windies down they tore ; 
 
W. M. THACKERAY 177 
 
 They smashed the lovely windies 70 
 
 (Hung with muslin from the Indies), 
 Purshuing of their shindies upon Shannon shore. 
 
 With throwing of brickbats, 
 
 Drowned puppies and dead rats, 
 These ruffin democrats themselves did lower; 
 
 Tin kettles, rotten eggs. 
 
 Cabbage -stalks, and wooden legs, 
 They flung among the patriots of Shannon shore. 
 
 Oh the girls began to scrame 
 
 And upset the milk and crame ; 80 
 
 And the honourable gintlemin, they cursed and swore : 
 
 And Mitchil of Belfast, 
 
 'Twas he that looked aghast, 
 When they roasted him in effigy by Shannon shore. 
 
 Oh the lovely tay was spilt 
 
 On that day of Ireland's guilt ; 
 Says Jack Mitchil, " I am kilt ! Boys, where's the back door.? 
 
 'Tis a national disgrace ; 
 
 Let me go and veil me face " ; 
 And he boulted with quick pace from the Shannon shore. 90 
 
 " Cut down the bloody horde ! " 
 
 Says Meagher of the Sword, 
 *' This conduct would disgrace any blackamore "; 
 
 But the best use Tommy made 
 
 Of his famous battle blade 
 Was to cut his own stick from the Shannon shore. 
 
178 STORY POEMS 
 
 Immortal Smith 0' Brine 
 
 Was raging like a line ; 
 Twould have done your sowl good to have heard him roar; 
 
 In his glory he arose, loo 
 
 And he rush'd upon his foes, 
 But they hit him on the nose by the Shannon shore. 
 
 Then the Futt and the Dthragoons 
 
 In squadthrons and platoons, 
 With their music playing chunes, down upon us bore : 
 
 And they beat the rattatoo, 
 
 But the Peelers came in view, 
 And ended the shaloo on the Shannon shore. 
 
 W. M. Thackeray. 
 
 c^ 
 
 J 
 
THOMAS HOOD 179 
 
 XXXIX. FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN 
 An Old Ballad 
 
 Young Ben he was a nice young man, 
 
 A carpenter by trade; 
 And he fell in love with Sally Brown, 
 
 That was a lady's maid. 
 
 But as they fetched a walk one day, 
 
 They met a press-gang crew ; 
 And Sally she did faint away, 
 
 Whilst Ben he was brought to. 
 
 The Boatswain swore with wicked words, 
 
 Enough to shock a saint, 10 
 
 That though she did seem in a fit, 
 Twas nothing but a feint. 
 
 " Come, girl," said he, *' hold up your head. 
 
 Hell be as good as me ; 
 For when your swain is in our boat, 
 
 A boatswain he will be.'' 
 
 So when they'd made their game of her, 
 
 And taken off 'her elf, 
 She roused, and found she only was 
 
 A coming to herself. 
 
i8o STORY POEMS 
 
 " And is he gone, and is he gone? " 
 
 She cried, and wept outright: 
 '* Then I will to the water side, 
 
 And see him out of sight." 
 
 A waterman came up to her, 
 
 '* Now, young woman,*' said he, 
 " If you weep on so, you will make 
 
 Eye-water in the sea.'* 
 
 " Alas! theyVe taken my beau Ben 
 
 To sail with old Benbow "; 30 
 
 And her woe began to run afresh. 
 
 As if she'd said Gee woe I 
 
 Says he, " TheyVe only taken him 
 
 To the Tender ship, you see ''; 
 ** The Tender ship," cried Sally Brown, 
 
 *' What a hard-ship that must be! 
 
 "Oh! would I were a mermaid now, 
 
 For then I'd follow him; 
 But oh! I'm not a fish-woman, 
 
 And so I cannot s^\dm. 40 
 
 " Alas! I was not born beneath 
 
 The Virgin and the Scales, 
 So I must curse my cruel stars. 
 
 And walk about in Wales." 
 
 i 
 
THOMAS HOOD i8i 
 
 Now Ben had sailed to many a place 
 
 That's underneath the world; 
 But in two years the ship came home, 
 
 And all her sails were furled. 
 
 But when he called on Sally Brown, 
 
 To see how she went on, 50 
 
 He found she'd got another Ben, 
 
 Whose Christian name was John. 
 
 " O Sally Brown, O Sally Brown! 
 
 How could you serve me so ? 
 IVe met with many a breeze before. 
 
 But never such a blow." 
 
 Then reading on his 'bacco box. 
 
 He heaved a bitter sigh, 
 And then began to eye his pipe, 
 
 And then to pipe his eye. 60 
 
 And then he tried to sing ** All's Well," 
 
 But could not though he tried: 
 His head was turned, and so he chewed 
 
 His pigtail till he died. 
 
 His death, which happened in his berth, 
 
 At forty-odd befell: 
 The}^ went and told the sexton, and 
 
 The sexton toll'd the bell. 
 
 Thomas Hood. 
 
i82 STORY POEMS 
 
 XL. THAT HEATHEN CHINEE 
 Table Mountain, 1870 
 
 These humorous verses come to us from California, where 
 there are a great many Chinese emigrants. The Americans 
 on the Pacific slope are not remarkable for any particular 
 dullness or want of smartness, but occasionally the Oriental 
 is more than a match for them. His ancient tricks are a 
 novelty to the New World. 
 
 Euchre, the favourite American gambling game of cards 
 here mentioned, is a variation of the old French game ecarte. 
 
 The Bill Nye spoken of is a slanting allusion to James Nye, 
 a United States official of eminence, whose private taste for 
 card pastimes is well known in his own country. (Author's 
 Note.) 
 
 Which I wish to remark — 
 
 And my language is plain — 
 That for ways which are dark 
 
 And for tricks that are vain, 
 The heathen Chinee is peculiar, 
 
 Which the same I would rise to explain. 
 
 Ah Sin was his name ; 
 
 And I shall not deny 
 In regard to the same 
 
 What that name might imply, 10 
 
 But his smile it was pensive and childlike, 
 
 As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye. 
 
 It was August the third; 
 And quite soft was the skies; 
 
BRET HARTE 183 
 
 Which it might be inferred 
 
 That Ah Sin was Hkewise; 
 Yet he played it that day upon WiUiam 
 
 And me in a way I despise. 
 
 Which we had a small game, 
 
 And Ah Sin took a hand: 20 
 
 It was euchre. The same 
 
 He did not understand; 
 But he smiled as he sat by the table; 
 
 With the smile that was childhke and bland. 
 
 Yet the cards they were stocked 
 
 In a way that I grieve, 
 And my feelings were shocked 
 
 At the state of Nye's sleeve; 
 Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, 
 
 And the same with intent to deceive. 30 
 
 But the hands that were played 
 
 By that heathen Chinee, 
 And the points that he made 
 
 Were quite frightful to see — 
 Till at last he put down a right bower. 
 
 Which the same Nye had dealt unto me. 
 
 Then I looked up at Nye, 
 
 And he gazed upon me; 
 And he rose Avith a sigh 
 
 And said, '' Can this be? 40 
 
 We are ruined by Chinese cheap labour '' — 
 
 And he went for that heathen Chinee. 
 
i84 STORY POEMS 
 
 In the scene that ensued 
 
 I did not take a hand, 
 But the floor it was strewed 
 
 Like the leaves on the strand 
 With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, 
 
 In the game *' he did not understand." 
 
 In his sleeves, which were long, 
 
 He had twenty-four jacks — 50 
 
 Which was coming it strong. 
 
 Yet I state but the facts ; 
 And we found on his nails, which were taper. 
 
 What is frequent in tapers — that's wax. 
 
 Which is why I remark. 
 
 And my language is plain. 
 That for ways that are dark, 
 
 And for tricks that are vain. 
 The heathen Chinee is peculiar — 
 
 Which the same I am free to maintain, 60 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
FURTHER NOTES, INCLUDING 
 BIOGRAPHIES 
 
 I. Sir Patrick Spens. Date, author and occasion 
 of this fine old ballad are quite unknown; but there 
 was much intercourse between Scotland and Norway 
 in old times, and the incident described may be 
 historical. 
 
 II. Lord Ullin's Daughter. Lines 27 and 28 
 have been described as "the central jewel'' of this 
 fine ballad. 
 
 III. HoHENLiNDEN. Moreau beat the Austrians 
 at Hohenlinden six months after Campbell had left 
 Bavaria, but he had seen a battle near Ratisbon. 
 
 *' Subject and spirit, words and music, make an 
 indivisible quaternity, and, except in two or three 
 passages of Homer and iEschylus, there is nothing 
 anywhere that surpasses the last and culminating 
 stanza in poignant simplicity.*' — Professor Saints- 
 bury. 
 
 32. Old forms of '* sepulchre " are " sepulchree " 
 and '* sepulchrie." 
 
 Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) was the son of a 
 Glasgow trader. He won high distinction both at the 
 
 185 
 
i86 COMMENTARY 
 
 local Grammar School and University, turned to 
 private tuition for support, and won fame at twenty- 
 two with a long poem, The Pleasures of Hope. After 
 nearly a year's residence in Germany, and literary 
 hack-work in Scotland, he moved to London and 
 married. Gertrude of Wyoming with shorter poems — 
 including Lord Ullin's Daughter — was published in 
 1809. Literary work of all sorts, editorship of the 
 New Monthly Magazine for ten years, lectures on 
 poetry, money troubles, ill-health, occasional trips to 
 the continent — such is the record of his remaining 
 years. But in 1825 by a letter to The Times he origin- 
 ated the scheme which led to the establishment of 
 London University, " the only important event," he 
 said, '' in my hfe's little history." His last few months 
 were spent in faiHng health at Boulogne. He was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey, with a guard of Polish 
 nobles, one of whom sprinkled on the coffin a handful 
 of earth from the grave of Kosciusko. His longer 
 poems are now little read, but such things as Hohen- 
 linden and the two naval odes are among the chief 
 treasures of English poetry. His Specimens of the 
 British Poets is a valuable collection with some inter- 
 esting criticism. 
 
 IV. RosABELLE. From The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
 canto vi. 
 
 13. The gift of second sight, or mental vision, was 
 believed to be widely prevalent in Scotland. 
 
 39. Roslin Chapel is famous for its delicate stone- 
 carving, especially the " Prentice Pillar." 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 187 
 
 V. Alice Brand. From The Lady of the Lake, 
 canto iv. 
 
 46. The fairies wore green, and were offended when 
 mortals wore it. 
 
 VI. LocHiNVAR. From Marmion, canto v. . 
 43. Cf. Archie of Caw field: 
 
 O, there was horsing, horsing in haste, 
 And cracking of whips out owre the lea; 
 
 and Byron's *' there was mounting in hot haste." This 
 idiom presents an action without specifying the actors. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was the son of an 
 Edinburgh lawyer. From very early years Scottish 
 legends and Scottish scenery were his delight. At 
 school in Edinburgh his merry pugnacity made him 
 many friends, his omnivorous reading and extra- 
 ordinary memory stored his mind — and so it was all 
 through his life. Neither at school nor at Edinburgh 
 University, which he entered at twelve, did scholastic 
 subjects make much impression on him, but he was 
 versed in four modern languages and learnt some law 
 in his father's office. Called to the Bar in 1792, he soon 
 published translations from the German, collected and 
 annotated three volumes of Border Minstrelsy (which 
 supplied much material for his later original works), 
 and leaped to fame with The Lay of the Last Minstrel 
 in 1805. He triumphed again with Marmion (1808) 
 and The Lady of the Lake (1810), but later poems 
 suffered from their own inferiority and the rising 
 genius of Byron. The canny poet turned to prose, 
 
i88 COMMENTARY 
 
 and in"i8i4 appeared anonymously Waverley, the first 
 of the famous series which ended in 183 1. Meanwhile 
 Scott had begun to reahse his great ambition — to be 
 a landed proprietor. He had married at the age of 
 twenty-six. Now his fame, his wealth, his estate and 
 his hospitality grew and flourished. He was made a 
 baronet in 1820. Six years later came the crash. The 
 publishing house in which he was secretly a partner 
 failed for ;f 117,000; but Scott refused the protection 
 of bankruptcy, worked harder than ever, paid off 
 £40,000 in four years, and soon after his death the 
 remaining debt was paid off by his executors. The 
 effort killed him. Paralysis and other illnesses wore 
 him down. He was taken to Naples in a warship, but 
 hurried home to die at Abbotsford. He was buried in 
 the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey. 
 
 Vn. The High Tide on the Coast of Lincoln- 
 shire. '' For earnestness and technical excellence one 
 of the finest of modern ballads." — Dictionary of 
 'National Biography. 
 
 loi. The tidal wave on the Trent is still called the 
 eygre. Other forms of the word are eagre, higre. 
 
 Jean Ingelow (1820-97) was born at Boston, 
 Lincolnshire, the daughter of a banker. Her first 
 volume of verse appeared in 1850. Tennyson had 
 seen it in manuscript, found some very charming things 
 in it, and advised publication, though he naturally 
 discouraged the practice of rhyming *' Eudora " with 
 *' before her,'' and " vista " with *' sister." Edward 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 189 
 
 FitzGerald, the translator of Omar Khayydm, liked it 
 so much that he wrote a review, but failed to get it 
 published; and the public failed to read the poems. 
 But in 1863 appeared a volume which went through 
 four editions in a year, and other volumes followed 
 in 1876 and 1885. From 1863 onwards Miss Ingelow 
 lived in London, and wrote a great deal of prose. 
 Her best long novel is said to be Off the Skelligs 
 (1872), but her Stories told to a Child (1865) are 
 more highly praised. 
 
 VIII. Herv^Riel. Published (1871) in the ComM/ 
 Magazine) the proceeds (one hundred guineas) were 
 sent by Browning to the distressed people of Paris 
 after the siege. It was composed at Croisic, a little 
 Breton coast town, near the mouth of the Loire. The 
 story is true, but it had been locally quite forgotten. 
 
 I. Russell with ninety ships beat Tourville's fifty 
 after a five hours* fight, and thus crushed the French 
 attempt to restore James II. 
 
 92. The fourteenth-century Tour Solidor still over- 
 looks the south-west harbour of St. Servan. 
 
 120. A run of over three hundred miles! Browning 
 has sentimentalised the facts, and ignored geography. 
 Riel really asked to be discharged from the service. 
 
 IX. How They Brought the Good News from 
 Ghent to Aix. Written on board ship, in the reaction 
 after a severe tossing on the Bay of Biscay. No real inci- 
 dent is described, and we must not criticise too closely 
 all the details. The lines certainly stir the blood. 
 
igo COMMENTARY 
 
 Robert Browning (1812-89) was born at Camber- 
 well, his father, a man of wide and exact knowledge in 
 literature, being a clerk in the Bank of England. A 
 private school, his father's Hbrary, the Dulwich picture 
 gallery, with some riding, fencing and boxing, provided 
 for his ever restless activity. In 1833 appeared Pauliney 
 followed by Paracelsus (1834) and Sordello (1840), long 
 and difficult poems, full of thought and learning. Trips 
 to Russia and Italy preluded many wanderings, and 
 plays and poems poured from his pen. In 1845 came 
 the romance of his life. He made the acquaintance of 
 the invalid poet Elizabeth Barrett, infused into her 
 some of his abounding vitality, rescued her from an 
 autocratic father, and gave her fifteen years of perfect 
 married happiness. He took great risks and he was 
 justified. Nearly all those years were spent in Italy, 
 and the production of poems continued. The rest of 
 his life was spent in London, with holidays in France 
 and Italy. His work may be said to have culminated 
 in The Ring and the Book (1868-69), ^^^^ '' great epic 
 of the enormous importance of small things,'* but it 
 continued to the end of his long life without a sign of 
 diminution of mental vigour. By slow degrees the 
 public became aware of the great worth of his poetry. 
 The famous Browning Society was founded in 1881. 
 Browning himself was much lionised, and he lived 
 a great deal in what is called Society. He knew its 
 value very well, but he was less of a cynic than 
 most men of his powers. He was buried in West- 
 minster Abbey, the choir singing his wife's poem, 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep." 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 191 
 
 XL The Ballad of Agincourt: 
 
 6. Havre was not founded till a hundred years later, 
 by Louis XII. Among the " forts *' taken was Harfleur. 
 
 39. Referring to line 19. 
 
 68. Henry set an ambush in a low-lying meadow. 
 
 105^. Notice how well Drayton works in the proper 
 names, as Scott did later. Shakespeare was often 
 quite careless about this nicety; Prof. Elton quotes 
 the appalling line — " Sir Richard Ketley, Davy Gam, 
 esquire." 
 
 Michael Drayton (1563-1631) was born near 
 Atherstone in Warwickshire. He seems to have been 
 taken up quite young by a local magnate, Sir Henry 
 Goodere, and well educated for those times; but it is 
 uncertain whether he went to a university. By 1591 
 he was in London, and fourteen years after Spenser 
 had popularised the pastoral form, Drayton brought 
 out Idea, The Shepherd's Garland, Next came the 
 inevitable series of sonnets, but the magnificent '' Since 
 there's no help, come, let us kiss and part " was not 
 added till 1619. In 1597 appeared his most popular 
 work, England's Heroical Epistles, a series of verse 
 letters between great ill-fated personages, after the 
 manner of Ovid. The Barons' Wars of 1603 is a complete 
 remodelling of the earlier M or timer iados. In 1606 came 
 Odes, including the first form of Agincourt. The next 
 thirteen years were spent on the enormous verse record 
 of the localities and legends of England, called Poly- 
 Olbion, Drayton had got into disgrace with James I. 
 by rushing in with a poetic congratulation before he 
 
192 COMMENTARY 
 
 had decently deplored the loss of Elizabeth — who had 
 indeed done nothing for him. However, Prince Henry 
 and Prince Charles accepted in succession the dedica- 
 tion of Poly-Olbion, but they could not induce the 
 public to read it. It has, indeed, weary stretches, but 
 contains many passages of much charm. Among 
 Drayton's later work is the charming fairy poem 
 Nymphidia. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 He is not known to have married. 
 
 Xn. The Battle of Naseby: 
 
 Charles I., *' the Man of Blood,'' led the main body 
 at Naseby, Sir Marmaduke Langdale the cavalry of 
 the left wing. Prince Rupert that of the right; Sir 
 Jacob Astley was one of the commanders of the 
 reserves. Fairfax and Skippon led the main body of 
 the Parliamentary armj^; Ireton opposed Rupert, and 
 Cromwell Langdale. Rupert broke Ireton's wing, and 
 fighting in the centre was for long indecisive, but 
 Cromwell's complete success on the right secured a 
 crushing victory for Parliament. The supposed author 
 was one of the foot who rallied round their guns after 
 Rupert's rush had passed. 
 
 A poet of so utterly different a genius and lot in life 
 as Francis Thompson wrote: '' I am disposed to put 
 in a good word for Macaulay's Ballads." Here is a 
 stanza from his own The Veteran of Heaven : 
 
 O Captain of the wars, whence won Ye so great scars ? 
 
 In what fight did Ye smite, and what manner was the foe ? 
 Was it on a day of rout they compassed Thee about, 
 
 Or gat Ye these adornings when Ye wrought their overthrow ? 
 
I 
 
 NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 193 
 
 I. In the first stanza the victorious troops ate 
 greeted on their return to London. 
 
 14. Sir Thomas Fairfax. 
 
 22. Alsatia was the WTiitefriars sanctuary used by 
 debtors and law-breakers; see Scott's The Fortunes of 
 Nigel. The Stewarts' court was at Whitehall. 
 
 35. The famous Ironsides, organised by Cromwell 
 to balance the Royalist superiority in cavalry. 
 
 37-40. Typical Roundhead calumnies. 
 
 55. Oxford was a great centre of royalism. 
 
 Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (1800-59), 
 was born on St. Crispin's Day in Leicestershire. His 
 father, Zachary, a very remarkable man, had been 
 first Governor of the negro colony at Sierra Leone. 
 Macaulay read incessantly from the age of three; 
 before he was eight he had written a compendium of 
 Universal History, and several long poems, perfect 
 in spelling, grammar and punctuation. A private 
 school near his home at Clapham, and another near 
 Cambridge, led to his entering Trinity College in 1818, 
 where he won a fellowship; he was called to the Bar 
 in 1826. Fame arrived with his article on Milton in 
 the Edinburgh Review (1825). He entered Parliament 
 in 1830, and soon made a great reputation. In 1833 
 he went as Member of Council to India, where he set 
 up the Europeanised system of education, and framed 
 the Criminal Code which was enacted after the Mutiny. 
 From 1839 to 1841 he was Secretary for War. The 
 popular Lays of Ancient Rome came out in 1842, the 
 brilliant Essays continued, and the History of England 
 
 G 
 
194 COMMENTARY 
 
 was begun. He lost his seat at Edinburgh in 1847, 
 and settled down to literary work. The History had 
 an extraordinary success; it has been translated into 
 at least eleven languages. Honours both foreign and 
 domestic poured upon him. In 1857 ^^ ^^^ made a 
 Peer; *' God knows/' he wrote, " that the poor women 
 at Delhi and Cawnpore are more in my thoughts than 
 my coronet." His positiveness and omniscience have 
 become a by- word. *' I wish I was as sure of anything 
 as Tom Macaulay is of everything," said one. The 
 deeper side of his nature must be gathered from Sir 
 George Trevelyan's admirable life of his uncle. He was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey. He never married. 
 
 Xni. Hawke: 
 
 I. This " wonderful year " of the Seven Years' War 
 saw also the victory of Minden, and the capture of 
 Quebec by Wolfe. 
 
 Sir Henry John Newbolt (1862) was educated at 
 Clifton College, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford: he 
 practised at the Bar (1887-99), and was editor of the 
 Monthly Review (1900-4) ; Vice-president of the Royal 
 Society of Literature; Professor of Poetry and Mem- 
 ber of Academic Committee. Some of his works are: 
 Admirals All (1897), Songs of the Sea and Songs of the 
 Fleet (1904-10), Poems New and Old (1912), Tales of 
 the Great War (1916), A New Study of English Poetry 
 (1917), Submarining and Anti-Submarining (1918). 
 
 Robert Southey (1774-1843) was the son of a 
 Bristol linendraper. Local schools did little for the 
 shy boy, but he read the English poets greedily — later 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 195 
 
 in life he admitted having read The Faerie Queene 
 thirty times — and was already an epic poet at twelve. 
 After four years at Westminster School he wrote an 
 article against flogging, in an informal school maga- 
 zine, proved, in fact, from the ancients and the Fathers, 
 that it was an invention of the Devil. For this crime 
 he had to leave. At eighteen he went up to Balliol 
 College, where again he made few but firm friends. A 
 wonderful scheme for a joint colony on the Susque- 
 hanna with Coleridge and other young friends — Pantiso- 
 cracy they called it — came to nothing. Marriage at 
 twenty-one, the publication of his first epic Joan of 
 Arc in the next year, wanderings in England and 
 Portugal, and the continual collection of folios, led to 
 his settling down in 1803 ^^ Greta Hall, Keswick, in 
 joint occupation with his brother-in-law Coleridge. 
 There he supported a growing family by his unwearied 
 pen, writing articles for the Quarterly Review^ writing 
 poems chiefly epic, histories and lives in prose, almost 
 living in a library which grew to 14,000 volumes. 
 Thalaha the Destroyer (1800), Madoc (1805), The Curse 
 of Kehama (1809), and Roderick, the Last of the Goths 
 (1814), are now httle read, but the Letters, and the 
 Lives at least of Nelson and Wesley, are still delightf uL 
 Overwork and bereavement made his old age sad. He 
 became Poet Laureate in 1813. By his own desire he 
 was buried in Crosthwaite Churchyard. 
 
 XV. The Burial of Sir John Moore. After his 
 famous retreat through northern Spain before the. 
 greatly superior forces of Soult and Ney, Moore was 
 
196 COMMENTARY 
 
 compelled to fight at Corunna in 1809, as the ships 
 sent to take off his army had been delayed. He won 
 the battle but fell himself. 
 
 Charles Wolfe (1791 - 1843) was educated in 
 England and at Trinity College, Dublin. He took 
 Orders in 18 17, and died of consumption at the Cove 
 of Cork, as Queenstown was then called. He is one of 
 the small band of poets who are known for one poem 
 of supreme excellence. It appeared in a Newry paper 
 in 18 17, and was ascribed to Byron — -who admired it 
 greatly — and to others. 
 
 XVI. Admiral Hosier's Ghost appeared with 
 great success after Admiral Vernon's capture of Porto 
 Bello in 1739. Two years later Glover's friend Pitt 
 used the popular indignation which the ballad had 
 aroused, in an attack on Walpole's administration 
 Hannah More heard Glover sing it in advanced old age. 
 
 I. Porto Bello on the Caribbean Sea, near the 
 entrance of the present Panama Canal, had in 1597 
 succeeded Nombre de Dios as the Spanish port for 
 the Peruvian trade, and was often attacked by the 
 English. In 1726 Hosier was sent out with a strong 
 blockading squadron, but 4000 of his men, sixty 
 officers, himself and his two successors, were carried 
 off by fever. 
 
 13. Cf. Tennyson's '' his heavy-shotted hammock- 
 shroud." 
 
 22. The Bur/ord was Vernon's ship. 
 
 53. Bastimentos, now called Provision Island, was 
 not far from Porto Bello, and served as an anchorage. 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 197 
 
 Richard Glover (1712-85) was educated at Cheam 
 school, and followed his father's calling as Hamburg 
 merchant. As Member of Parliament he was fre- 
 quently the spokesman of the important commercial 
 interest, and was intimate with Pitt, Lyttleton, Temple 
 and Cobham. At sixteen he had written a Poem to 
 the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and in 1737 appeared 
 Leonidas, a blank verse epic in nine books, later en- 
 larged to twelve. " At the time of pubhcation a zeal, 
 or rather rage, for liberty prevailed in England,'' and 
 the now unreadable epic passed through three editions 
 in two years. A tragedy, Boadicea, lan for nine nights 
 at Drury Lane in 1753, and the Athenaid, in thirty 
 books, was " presented to the world " after his death; 
 but the world ignored the gift. Glover was evidently 
 a trustworthy man. He was one of two commissioned 
 by the Duchess of Marlborough in her will to write 
 the Life of her great husband; but as the work was 
 to be revised by Lord Chesterfield, whose political 
 character Glover despised, he refused the honour. 
 
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) was the son of 
 a Lincolnshire clergyman, the fourth of twelve children. 
 At twelve he produced an epic of 6000 lines, and at 
 fourteen a blank verse drama. He had his early educa- 
 tion nominally at Louth Grammar School — '' How I 
 did hate that school! " was his later testimony — 
 really from his father and his father's library. In 
 1828 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and 
 next year was successful with his prize poem Timhuctoo ; 
 but his first characteristic verse was in the volume 
 
 i. 
 
198 COMMENTARY 
 
 published in 1830. Two years later appeared The Lady 
 of Shalott, (Enone, The Lotos-Eaters, with other master- 
 pieces, and in 1842 his fame was finally established 
 by two volumes including Morte d' Arthur snid Ulysses, 
 His friend Arthur Hallam had died in 1833, and for 
 many years Tennyson was composing the sections of 
 a great memorial poem, published in 1850 as In 
 Memoriam. In the same year he married after an 
 engagement of fourteen years, and succeeded Words- 
 worth as Poet Laureate — truly a memorable date. In 
 1853 Tennyson settled down at Farringford, Isle of 
 Wight. Maud was produced in 1855, ^.nd the first 
 Idylls of the King in 1859. Well versed from his youth 
 in Latin and Greek literature, he began Hebrew at 
 the age of fifty-eight, and thought of translating the 
 Book of Job. Having done with the Idylls he wrote 
 several plays, of which Becket was far the most success- 
 ful on the stage. Other poems, some of them splendid, 
 continued to appear, and in his eighty-first year he 
 wrote the '' immortal lyric '* Crossing the Bar. He 
 was buried in Westminster Abbey, next his friend 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 XIX. The Forsaken Merman. See an eloquent 
 eulogy in Swinburne's Essays and Studies, p. 158. 
 Notice how the same rhyme-sounds tend to recur. The 
 music of this beautiful poem is inseparable from its 
 pathetic effect; line 82 hits a blow upon the ear; 
 contrast line 34, and others. 
 
 Matthew Arnold (1822-88) was the eldest son of 
 Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby. 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 199 
 
 His Rugby prize poem, Alaric at Rome, was published 
 in 1840. A scholarship at Balliol College, the Newdigate 
 Prize for his poem Cromwell, and a fellowship at Oriel, 
 were his chief university successes. He was private 
 secretary to Lord Lansdowne from 1847 to 185 1, and 
 in the latter year he married and became an Inspector 
 of Schools. All his life he worked hard and successfully 
 in the cause of better education ; his Reports are said 
 to be readable more than most blue-books. Meanwhile 
 a volume of poems had appeared in 1848, and was 
 followed by others. He was Professor of Poetry at 
 Oxford from 1857 to 1867, and several volumes of 
 admirable literary essays embody his professorial 
 work. Twice he lectured in the United States. After 
 his professorship he dropped poetry, and wrote works 
 of social, moral, and religious criticism. Culture and 
 Anarchy, Literature and Dogma, and others. Much of 
 his criticism, and more of the apt phrases in which 
 he expressed it, have become common property, and 
 at least one pathetic poem, Sohrab and Rustum, is 
 known to everyone; but many of his poems are of 
 high excellence. His criticism is criticism of the only 
 useful kind — that which provokes thought, and it is 
 remarkably readable. He was buried in Laleham 
 churchyard, by that Thames which he had loved and 
 praised so well. 
 
 XX. Jason's Ploughing: 
 
 18. Notice that Morris, like his master Chaucer and 
 all but the most modem writers, uses the Roman 
 names of Greek divinities. 
 
200 COMMENTARY 
 
 40. Morris places Phineus' town, Salmydessa, on 
 the Propontis or Sea of Marmora. 
 
 loi. Juno, in the guise of an old woman, had carried 
 Jason over the swollen river Anaurus. 
 
 140. The allusion is to the Golden Fleece. 
 
 144. The Euripus, which separated Eubcea from the 
 mainland of Greece. 
 
 William Morris (1834-96) was the son of a 
 London broker. He was an early reader, and at four 
 knew most of Scott's novels. Four years at a private 
 school were followed by three at Marlborough College, 
 and in 1853 he went up to Exeter College, Oxford. 
 There he made friends with Edward Bume- Jones, 
 relinquished — with him — ^his notion of taking Orders, 
 and studied art with characteristic energy. He entered 
 an architect's office in 1856, produced the beautiful 
 Defence of Guinevere in 1858, and married in the fol- 
 lowing year. The building and furnishing of his own 
 house gave him an opportunity of realising that ideal 
 of beauty in every-day things, of which he became the 
 apostle. It was an age of ugHness in England. With 
 Bume- Jones, Rossetti, and a few others, he formed 
 a company to work in metal, to make wallpapers, 
 chintzes, carpets, and stained glass, and his immense 
 enthusiasm was a great element in its success. In 
 1883 he threw himself heart and soul into the cause 
 of socialism, but not finding human beings as tract- 
 able as colours and fabrics, he gradually returned 
 to art and literature. The Life and Death of Jason 
 had appeared in 1867, The Earthly Paradise was com- 
 pleted in 1870, and the result of two journeys to 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 201 
 
 Iceland was the long and vigorous Sigurd the Volsung 
 of 1876. He translated the Mneid and the Odyssey, 
 and wrote a number of prose romances. His last six 
 years were, mainly devoted to making beautiful things 
 of books ; the magnificent Kelmscott Chaucer was com- 
 pleted just before his death. " He was buried in Kelm- 
 scott churchyard, followed to the grave by the work- 
 men he had inspired, the members of the league which 
 he had supported, the students of the art guild he had 
 founded, and the villagers who had learnt to love 
 him." 
 
 XXI. The Healing of Conall Carnach. The best 
 parts of the old Irish heroic tradition centre round 
 Connor, King of Ulster (first century a.d.), and his 
 antagonist Maev, Queen of Connaught. Keth was 
 Maev's nephew, Conall Carnach (Conall the Victorious) 
 one of the mightiest and most chivalrous of the Ulster 
 champions. 
 
 I. Sliabh Fuad was the highest mountain of the 
 Fews range in County Armagh. 
 
 18. The ruins of Maev's palace are still pointed out 
 at Rathcroghan, County Roscommon. 
 
 29. Breiffny was a border district between Ulster 
 and Connaught, called after a famous female warrior. 
 
 31. On Moy Slaught (the Plain of Adoration) stood 
 the great gold-covered image of Crom Cruach; see 
 line 45. Later he was cursed by St. Patrick, and 
 swallowed in the earth up to his neck. 
 
 "]"]. Forbaid, son of Connor, killed Maev, because 
 Keth had similarly smitten Connor. 
 
202 COMMENTARY 
 
 Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-86) was born in Bel- 
 fast, educated there and at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 and called to the Irish bar in 1838. In his twenty- 
 first year he wrote the well-known Forging of the 
 Anchor, and almost to the end of his life he wrote 
 prose articles in the reviews and magazines. But his 
 best work was done in the wide and little-cultivated 
 field of Irish antiquities, including Irish sagas. He 
 spent a year on the Continent following the traces of 
 early Irish missionaries and scholars, and his marriage 
 in 1848 gave him an enthusiastic helper in his work. 
 Lays of the Western Gael appeared in 1864, and three 
 years later he became the first Deputy Keeper of the 
 Records of Ireland. He was knighted in 1878, and 
 received many honours from learned bodies. Of several 
 masterly poems founded on Irish bardic tales, the long 
 blank-verse Conary, published in 1880, is the finest. 
 The art with which the incoherent details of the old 
 story are knit together into a compact and moving 
 poem is not short of consummate. Perhaps his only 
 weakness is a tendency to " tag " the old pagan legends 
 with some reference to the coming Christianity. 
 
 XXII. The Death of Cuchulain. Cuchulain, the 
 Achilles of Irish legend, had left Emer and taken a 
 young wife at Emania. Emer's vengeance is here 
 related. The names and details vary greatly in the 
 different legends. 
 
 37. Connor's palace had three buildings: *' that of 
 the Red Branch, where were kept the heads and arms 
 of vanquished enemies; that of the Royal Branch, 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 203 
 
 where the kings lodged; and that of the Speckled 
 House, where were laid up the arms of the Ulster 
 warriors." 
 
 88. A classical author mentions the combats of the 
 Celts with the sea-waves. There is naturally much 
 sea-magic in the old tales. 
 
 William Butler Yeats (1865) was educated at 
 Godolphin School, Hammersmith, and Erasmus Smith 
 School, Dublin. Some of his works are The Wanderings 
 of Oisin (1889), The Countess Kathleen (1892), The 
 Works of William Blake (joint editor, 1893), Poems 
 (1895), Cathleen ni Hoolihan (1902), Ideas of Good and 
 Evil (1903), Collected Works (8 vols. 1908), Plays for 
 an Irish Theatre (1912), Reveries (191 6), Per Arnica 
 Silentia Lunce (1918). 
 
 XXIII. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. *' It would 
 be impertinence to praise this poem, which charms 
 alike young and old; and it stands above the reach 
 of criticism." — ^The Poet Laureate. 
 
 John Keats (1795-1821) was bom in Finsbury, 
 where his father kept a livery stable. He worked hard 
 at school in Enfield, and was noted for his generosity 
 and pugnacity; there he learnt Latin, and stored his 
 mind with Greek mythology. It was the Faerie Queene 
 that awakened his genius; *' he ramped through the 
 scenes of the romance,'' writes the friend who intro- 
 duced him, " like a young horse turned into a spring 
 meadow." At fifteen he was apprenticed to a local 
 surgeon, and four years later became a medical student 
 
204 COMMENTARY 
 
 at St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals. Friendship with 
 Leigh Hunt and Hay don the painter nourished his 
 imaginative vein. The little volume published in 1817 
 contains the noble sonnet On first Looking into Chap- 
 man's Homer, but nothing else of the first rank. In the 
 same year he left London, and worked upon Endymion 
 at Carisbrooke, Margate, Canterbury, Oxford, Burford 
 Bridge. This beautiful but immature poem appeared 
 in 1818. The hardships of a real tramp in Scotland 
 deranged his health, and in 1820 he had certain warning 
 of consumption. In the same year were published his 
 best poems, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St, Agnes, 
 Hyperion and the great Odes. Increasing illness, and 
 a late ardent and now hopeless love affair drove him 
 to seek health in Italy. He died and was buried at 
 Rome. No man ever had better or warmer friends. 
 His letters, while health remained, are captivating; 
 La Belle Dame Sans Merci comes from a long journal- 
 letter to his brother and sister-in-law in America. He 
 nursed wdth devotion another brother who died of 
 consumption. The tale of his having been killed by 
 a hostile review is ridiculous. 
 
 XXIV. Love. " Remarkable for a certain strange 
 fascination of melody . . . noteworthy also as perhaps 
 the fullest expression of the almost womanly softness 
 of Coleridge's character." — ^H. D. Traill. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was the 
 youngest of thirteen children of the Vicar of Ottery 
 St. Mary, in Devonshire. He early wrote poetry, though 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 205 
 
 at Christ's Hospital (1782-91) his passion for poetry 
 was temporarily eclipsed by a passion for metaphysics. 
 After three years at Jesus College, Cambridge — ^in the 
 course of which he put in four months' very inefficient 
 service as a private in the 15th Light Dragoons — he 
 left without taking a degree, met Southey at Oxford, 
 and formed with him a wonderful plan for marrying 
 two Bristol sisters, and emigrating to form an ideal 
 community in America. The marriages, being the 
 cheaper part of the design, duly came off. Lectures 
 at Bristol, a volume of verse (1797), and love in a 
 cottage, then followed. Under the influence of Words- 
 worth, The Ancient Manner and all his finest poems 
 were composed in the next two years. Then came a 
 visit to Germany with Wordsworth, writing for the 
 Morning Post, and settlement at Keswick in 1800. 
 The next phase of his life makes dismal reading — 
 wanderings, vast projects, opium-eating, occasional 
 estrangement from such firm friends as the Words- 
 worths and Lamb, his family left to Southey's loyal 
 care. In 1816 he put himself under the care of a High- 
 gate doctor, lived in his house for the rest of his life, 
 and recovered some part of his great powers. His 
 lectures on Shakespeare niark an epoch in criticism, 
 and his wonderful gift of talk never left him. There 
 is a pretty picture of Coleridge talking for two hours, 
 while Wordsworth listened with profound attention, 
 now and then nodding his head, though he confessed 
 afterwards that he had understood not one syllable. 
 His best poems are unique in loveHness. Coleridge 
 was buried at Highgate. 
 
2o6 COMMENTARY 
 
 XXV. The Sensitive Plant. '' The sensitive plant 
 is of course Shelley himself, ' companionless/ as he 
 makes himself in Adonais [the noble elegy on Keats], 
 * desiring what it has not, the beautiful.' " — Stopford 
 Brooke. 
 
 XXVI. Arethusa. Alpheus, a river-god of the 
 (Dorian) Peloponnesus, pursued the water-nymph 
 Arethusa under the sea to Sicily, where she became the 
 spring of Ortygia. Shelley treats the old story quite 
 freely. The notion of reconciliation may have come 
 from VirgiFs tenth Eclogue, line 4, but the treatment 
 is original. After filling our ears with the music of 
 this poem, we might well examine the truth of 
 its details; notice especially lines 10, 18, and 63. 
 Weave, woven, woof, are favourite words with 
 Shelley, partly no doubt for their beautiful sound ; 
 but there is a notion of growth, almost of life, in the 
 act of weaving, which suits his animated view of 
 nature. 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) *' was born 
 in the purple of the English squirearchy"; but his 
 sympathies were stedfastly revolutionary. We hear 
 first of long country rambles with his sisters, and 
 equally long tales made up for their delight. Two 
 years at a private school led on to Eton in 1804 — ^not 
 a promising nurse for a determined rebel; however 
 his prodigious memory helped him to acquire a certain 
 fluency in Greek and Latin. He published some very 
 juvenile prose romances, and entered University Col- 
 lege, Oxford, in 1810. There he read with intense 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 207 
 
 eagerness, often sixteen hours a day, but not the 
 official Aristotle. A pamphlet on The Necessity of 
 Atheism led to his expulsion, and a breach with his 
 father. Sir Timothy. His marriage at nineteen con- 
 firmed that breach, and ended unhappily. His first 
 fine poem Alastor appeared in 1816. In that year he 
 married Mary Godwin, and lived in Italy. There he 
 renewed his friendship with Byron, whom he had 
 already met at Geneva, and gave his life to the study 
 of most things and the practice of poetry. In one 
 year he wrote the masterpieces Prometheus Unhoimd 
 and The Cenci, besides shorter poems. In his later 
 works the enthusiasm for humanity which first ani- 
 mated him subsides into a more plaintive and personal 
 vein. Always a lover of boats, Shelley with some 
 English friends had a sailing-boat built, fast but 
 cranky, which upset in a squall and went down with 
 the owners. Shelley's body was washed ashore, and 
 cremated by his friends, of whom Byron was one; 
 the ashes were buried at Rome. '* A man who has 
 made more sacrifices of his fortune and feelings for 
 others than any I ever heard of " — such v/as Byron's 
 verdict; and all his friends loved him. 
 
 XXVII. Lucy Gray. Solitude had a fascination 
 for Wordsworth; he felt deeply what he calls its 
 ''self-sufficing power." This beautiful poem, of which 
 Wordsworth's latest biographer has said that it " will 
 perhaps be remembered when all other EngHsh poetry 
 of the century is forgotten," begins and ends on the 
 note of solitude. It is founded on fact; " the way in 
 
2o8 COMMENTARY 
 
 which the incident is treated/' so said the author, 
 *'and the spirituaHsing of the character, might furnish 
 hints for contrasting the imaginative influences which 
 I have endeavoured to throw over common Hfe, with 
 Crabbers matter-of-fact style of handling subjects of 
 the same kind." 
 
 XXVIII. Laodamia. This, '' the most majestic of 
 his poems, his one great utterance on heroic love," 
 was written fifteen years after Lucy Gray. It was 
 inspired by the study of Virgil, and contains many 
 Virgilian echoes. For an adverse criticism see Sara 
 Coleridge's letter to Aubrey de Vere (1846). 
 
 79. Hercules rescued Alcestis from Death; Medea 
 by her magic restored Mson to youth. Compare lines 
 87, 88. 
 
 106. Notice the striking contrast with Wordsworth's 
 theory of style, and his own earlier practice. 
 
 158. Wordsworth later rejected this merciful con- 
 clusion. His stern rectitude seems to have felt it 
 inconsistent with what precedes, especially line 75; 
 Hay don says his wife made him change it. But the 
 best modem opinion prefers the earlier text here given. 
 
 William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born at 
 Cockermouth, the son of a Cumberland attorney. At 
 nine he went to school at Hawkshead, near Lake 
 Windermere ; he read all Fielding, Don Quixote, and 
 some of Swift, but chiefly the book of Nature, " his 
 lifelong mistress." In 1787 he went up to St. John's 
 College, Cambridge. He was probably the first under- 
 graduate who ever spent a long vacation (1790) walking 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 209 
 
 in Switzerland. Having taken his degree, after a short 
 stay in London he spent more than a year in France, 
 sympathising, almost co-operating, with the moderate 
 revolutionaries. When the extremists got their way, 
 Wordsworth passed through a period of despondency 
 from the wreck of his high hopes for humanity. From 
 this he was saved by the companionship of his sister 
 Dorothy. Intercourse with Coleridge led to the joint 
 volume of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 — an epoch in English 
 poetry. He settled at Grasmere in 1800, married two 
 years later — ^Dorothy being still a comrade — and 
 moved to Rydal Mount in 1813. Tours in Scotland 
 and on the Continent, occasional visits to London, and 
 his succession to Southey as Poet Laureate in 1843, 
 are the chief external events to record. His stubborn 
 affection was deeply tried by the mental collapse of 
 Dorothy. Gradually his poetry gained the public ear, 
 and has ever since been a formative influence and a 
 consoling power; but nearly all his finest work was 
 done in the first half of his life; his high and holy 
 purpose never failed, but his once fervid imagination 
 cooled, and his ear grew dull to beauty. He vv^as buried 
 by his own desire in Grasmere churchyard. 
 
 XXIX. The Hermit. This story is from that medi- 
 aeval storehouse of tales, Gesta Romanorum; but it 
 had been treated by several English writers before 
 Parnell. It is probably of Oriental origin. 
 
 Thomas Parnell (1679-1717) was born in Dublin, 
 his father having gone to Ireland at the Restoration. 
 At thirteen he entered Trinity College, Dublin, and 
 
210 COMMENTARY 
 
 was ordained in 1700. He became Archdeacon of 
 Clogher in 1705, but he was not exactly a model parson, 
 for " as soon as ever he had collected in his annual 
 revenues, he immediately set out for England, to enjoy 
 the company of his dearest friends." He was always 
 welcome in that brilliant company which included 
 Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot and Gay ; and when Parnell felt 
 a fit of spleen coming on — he suffered a good deal from 
 that ambiguous disorder — " he returned with all speed 
 to the remote parts of Ireland," and wrote dolorous 
 descriptions of his surroundings. In London the wits 
 criticised each other's productions, and played tricks 
 on one another, especially on Swift. Parnell contri- 
 buted notes and a Life of Homer to Pope's translation 
 of the Iliad \ and Pope's letters are most affectionate 
 in tone; he collected and published the poems after 
 Parnell's death. Parnell may be said to live by The 
 Hermit, though A Fairy Tale is pleasant reading and 
 not in the least ponderous. He translated Pervigilium 
 Veneris and Batrachomyomachia, and wrote enormous 
 dissertations in verse on the heroes of the Old 
 Testament. He was buried at Chester, where he died 
 on his way to Ireland. His wife had died after two 
 years of married life. 
 
 XXX. Alexander's Feast. 
 
 25. Alexander encouraged, from poHcy, the opinion 
 that Jove was his father. 
 
 29. This seems to mean erect like a cork-screw. 
 Such was the form assumed by Satan in Paradise 
 Lost, ix. 496. 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 211 
 
 37-40. Dr. Verrall says: "The see-saw is mock 
 majesty, the self-complacency of the drop too much." 
 Young actually chose the metre of these lines for his 
 Ode on the Ocean, on account of its majesty! 
 
 72. Notice that the '' hand '* is Timotheus*, the 
 '' pride '* Alexander's. 
 
 97. The Lydian mode (or style) in Greek music was 
 soft and voluptuous. 
 
 165. A long-drawn note was not possible on the old 
 stringed instruments, which were twanged like a harp, 
 not played with a bow; and even the notes of wind 
 instruments were limited in duration by the capacity 
 of human lungs. 
 
 169. Legend says that an angel came down from 
 heaven, to listen to St. Cecilia's playing on her new 
 invention. But the skies to which Timotheus raised 
 Alexander are not precisely those which the angels 
 inhabit. The rhetorical point of the last two lines is 
 excusable only on the ground, as Dr. Verrall says, 
 that Dryden did not take Cecilia seriously. 
 
 John Dryden (1631-1700) was the eldest of fourteen 
 children ; his father was a justice of the peace for North- 
 amptonshire. He was educated at Westminster School, 
 under the famous Dr. Busby, to whom he afterwards 
 confided the care of his two sons. In 1750 he went up 
 to Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his degree in 
 due course. He must have worked hard, but he was 
 not precocious; his first poem of mark. Heroic Stanzas 
 in memory of Cromwell, appeared in 1658. On the 
 Restoration, he eulogised Charles II. with equal 
 
212 COMMENTARY 
 
 fervour; indeed his opinions, both poHtical and Hter- 
 ary, were always rather fluid. In 1683 he made an 
 unhappy marriage with a lady of title. He had been 
 elected a Fellow of the newly formed Royal Society, 
 and we soon find him among the wits of Will's Coffee 
 House, where he presently reigned supreme. His 
 rhymed plays won success by degrees, and in 1668 
 appeared his prose Essay of Dramatic Poesie, In 1670 
 he became Poet Laureate. His real admiration for 
 Milton was oddly shown by turning Paradise Lost into 
 an opera, with the author's permission. But his true 
 powers were shown in the great satires, Absalom and 
 Achitophel (1681), The Medal and MacFlecknoe (1682), 
 and poems of reHgious controversy — perhaps the only 
 readable things of the kind — Religio Laid (1682) and 
 The Hind and the Panther (1687); he had turned 
 Roman Catholic in 1686. He lost the Laureateship at 
 the Revolution, and took to play-writing again. His 
 translation of Virgil and Alexander's Feast appeared 
 in 1697, and the Fables ^ which show his genius at its 
 height, in 1700. He was buried with great state in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 XXXI. On the Death of a Favourite Cat. 
 Horace Walpole had two cats. Gray did not know 
 which had been drowned, hence the confusion of 
 colours in lines 4 and 10. 
 
 I. Notice the parody of Dry den's opening to Alex- 
 ander's Feast, 
 
 8. The ** fair round face " is from Pope's Wife of 
 Bath. Gray's poems are wonderful mosaics, made 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 213 
 
 from phrases of other writers, and wrought with con- 
 summate art into a beautiful whole. If anyone thinks 
 it easy to write a fine poem with other men's phrases, 
 let him try it. 
 
 15. The Romans imagined each locaUty to have its 
 guardian spirit, or genius loci. 
 
 34. Nereids were the fifty daughters of the sea-god 
 Nereus. They sometimes helped shipwrecked sailors 
 or vessels; and dolphins rescued drowning men in the 
 old stories. See Faerie Queene iv. 11, stanza 23. 
 
 42. Dr. Johnson justly remarked that the story does 
 not logically convey the last moral drawn from it: 
 '' if what glistered had been gold, the cat would not 
 have gone into the water; and if she had, would not 
 less have been drowned.'' Gray allows himself a piece 
 of mock-logic in this mock-heroic poem. 
 
 Thomas Gray (1716-71) was bom in Comhill, the 
 son of a merchant. At about eleven he went to Eton, 
 where his friendship with Horace Walpole began, and 
 he became what he remained, a scholar and a moralist ; 
 his poetry was for long confined to Latin verses and 
 occasional translations. In 1734 Gray entered Peter- 
 house, Cambridge. The years 1739-41 were spent 
 abroad with Walpole. He then lived with his mother 
 and aunts at Stoke Pogis, and there in 1742 he wrote 
 his first complete poem, the Ode to Spring; also the 
 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, and On 
 Adversity, and began the famous Elegy, finished in 
 1750. He spent five years at Cambridge in the study 
 of all Greek literature, taking '* verse and prose 
 
214 COMMENTARY 
 
 together, like bread and cheese," years which ended 
 with the famous cat poem, sent in a letter to Walpole 
 in 1747. The Elegy was published, almost in spite of 
 the author, in 1751, and had an immediate and lasting 
 success. He now made a new start with the great 
 Pindaric Odes, The Progress of Poesy (1754), and The 
 Bard, which took two and a half years to compose, 
 and owed its completion to the impulse of a Welsh 
 harper's music. Gray refused the Laureateship in 
 1757, and accepted the chair of Modem Literature 
 and Modem Languages at Cambridge in 1768; but 
 he never lectured. Tours in Scotland and the English 
 lakes found his early love of the picturesque fully 
 maintained. His last poems are remarkable as a fore- 
 taste of the later romantic movement ; indeed he was 
 in several ways before his age. He unbends delight- 
 fully in his excellent Letters. He never married. He 
 was buried at Stoke Pogis, in the churchyard which 
 he has made known all over the world. 
 
 XXXIL The Needless Alarm. '' In its humble 
 way, one of the most perfect of human compositions. — 
 GoLDWiN Smith. 
 
 XXXin. The Colubriad. The energy of these 
 compact lines where not a word is wasted, the rigid 
 relevance of all the details, and the colloquial vigour 
 of the vocabulary, contribute to make a quite unique 
 little poem. , 
 
 De Grasse was a French admiral beaten by Hood 
 and captured in 1782 by Rodney. His long queue tied 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 215 
 
 up with ribbons was fine material for English carica- 
 turists, especially Gillray. 
 
 William Cowper (1731-1800) was bom in his 
 father's rectory at Berkhampstead. At the age of 
 six he lost his mother, whose tenderness he com- 
 memorated fifty years later in some beautiful lines. 
 An unhappy time at a boarding-school, and two years 
 in the house of '* a female oculist of great renown " 
 — for the good of his eyes — ^led to Westminster School. 
 There he became a good classical scholar, and has left 
 a pleasant account of his master, Vincent Bourne. 
 After leaving at eighteen, he was articled for three 
 years to an attorney, lived in the Temple, and dabbled 
 in journalism. At thirty-two his delicate constitution 
 broke down, but after about two years in a private 
 asylum he recovered, and settled at Huntingdon as a 
 boarder with the Rev. William Unwin, whose widow 
 became two years later his staunch comrade and house- 
 keeper at Olney. She tended him with unfailing love 
 during sixteen months of another mental collapse. 
 Gardening and the care of three tame hares now 
 occupied him, and urged by Mrs. Unwin he wrote a 
 series of Moral Satires. But he was too kindly for a 
 satirist. Friendship with the vivacious and fashion- 
 able Lady Austin inspired John Gilpin, The Loss of 
 the Royal George (a wonder of simple majesty) , and the 
 long and fine poem The Task. This was published in 
 1782, and made Cowper famous. The advent of his 
 cousin Lady Hesketh inspired a number of the admir- 
 able short poems. But he over-worked himself with 
 
2i6 COMMENTARY 
 
 a blank verse translation of Homer (1784-91). Mrs. 
 Unwin lost her faculties and died in 1796, and though 
 other good friends were found, his last years were 
 passed in gloom. Cowper's Letters are some of the 
 best in the language. 
 
 XXXV. The Haunch of Venison. 
 
 10. The phrase '' potatoes and point '* describes this 
 frugal and imaginative form of relish ; it also suggests 
 distressing poverty, and admirable self-control. 
 
 21. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter, was 
 another member of the Johnson and Burke fraternity. 
 
 XXXVI. Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. 
 2%ff. This is an adaptation of a Greek epigram, 
 
 copied by Voltaire, of a man and a snake. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74), the son of an Irish 
 clergyman, was educated at village schools and at 
 Trinity College, Dublin. He took his degree in 1749 
 and inclined to medicine, which he studied after false 
 starts at various professions. This merely nominal 
 study was continued at Edinburgh and Leyden, and 
 in 1754 his rambling, unpractical character sent him 
 travelling about the Continent on foot, with a flute 
 for his companion. Two years later he was in London. 
 After a miserable experience as usher in a Peckham 
 " academy '' he took to writing criticism for the 
 reviews, on the edge of utter destitution. An Enquiry 
 into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe 
 attracted some attention, and in 1760 he contributed 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 217 
 
 to the Public Ledger a series of articles published two 
 years later as The Citizen of the World. In the following 
 year Johnson saved him from immediate distress by 
 selling the manuscript of The Vicar of Wakefield for 
 £60, but it was not published till Goldsmith's fame 
 was established by the appearance of his poem, The 
 Traveller, in 1764. Two years later the famous novel 
 appeared, and went through three editions in six 
 months. At intervals of two years were produced 
 the comedy The Goodnatured Man, the poem The 
 Deserted Village, and the comedy She Stoops to Conquer, 
 and in two years more Goldsmith was dead. He never 
 married. He was buried in Westminster Abbey with 
 a stately Latin inscription by Johnson, which states 
 that he handled almost every kind of literary com- 
 position, and adorned them all. Let us add that he 
 had a great gift of humour, and what always goes 
 with it — a tender heart. 
 
 XXXVII. Llyn-y-Dreiddiad-Vrawd. Peacock was 
 no admirer of war. Read his admirable War Song 
 of Dinas Vawr, 
 
 Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was the son of 
 a London glass merchant. He had his schooling from 
 eight to thirteen at Eaglefield Green, and at sixteen 
 moved to London with his mother. We hear dimly 
 of mercantile occupations, and definitely of arduous lin- 
 guistic labours at the British Museum, and two volumes 
 of verse. In 1808-9 he was for six months private 
 secretary to Sir Home Popham on board the Venerable, 
 
2i8 COMMENTARY 
 
 which he genially describes as "this floating inferno." 
 In 1810 appeared his first work of note, The Genius 
 of the Thames. In 1812 Peacock met Shelley, was 
 his continual companion for some years, and later the 
 recipient of his remarkable letters from abroad. The 
 first of his very original novels, Headlong Hall, ap- 
 peared in 1815, and Nightmare Abbey, which contains 
 a lively portrait of Shelley, followed three years later. 
 Successive years now saw his appointment at the India 
 House, and his marriage with Miss Jane Gryffydh, 
 whom he had only met eight years before in Wales, 
 and whose hand he now courageously acquired by post. 
 His rather paradoxical article on The Four Ages of 
 Poetry is chiefly notable for having provoked Shelley's 
 Defence of Poetry. Maid Marian (1822), The Mis- 
 fortunes of Elphin (1829), ^^^ Crotchet Castle (1831), 
 are delightful specimens of Peacockian comedy. In 
 1836 he succeeded James Mill as Chief Examiner of 
 Indian Correspondence. It is interesting now to find 
 that he prepared a memorandum on a projected 
 Euphrates expedition; he also secured the construc- 
 tion of iron steamers, till then unknown, for navigation 
 to India. His evidence before Parliamentary Com- 
 mittees is said to reveal very considerable powers of 
 mind — as indeed one would only expect in a friend of 
 Shelley; and he had humour and a pleasant vein of 
 sarcasm, in both of which Shelley was conspicuously 
 deficient. 
 
 XXXVIII. The Battle of Limerick. " The Battle 
 of the Baltic [Campbell] and The Battle of the Shannon 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 219 
 
 [sic] are two masterpieces of lyric narrative, the one 
 triumphant in tragedy, the other transcendant in 
 comedy. ' ' — Swinburne . 
 
 This appeared in Punch, 13th May, 1848. WiUiam 
 Smith O'Brien was a leader of the Young Ireland 
 party, a deputation from which had been received by 
 the French government on 3rd April, and the soir6e 
 here celebrated had been held on 29th April. The 
 movement was not entirely humorous. Mitchell, editor 
 of the United Irishman, was transported; O'Brien, 
 Meagher and others were condemned to death, but 
 the sentences were reduced to transportation. After 
 eight years an amnesty was granted to O'Brien. 
 
 7. A mixture of William III. and his general in 
 Ireland, the Duke of Schomberg. 
 
 49, 53. Bohea and congou are kinds of Chinese tea. 
 
 96. " To cut one's stick " means *' to clear out." 
 
 107. Peelers, also called Bobbies, from Sir Robert 
 Peel who invented the policeman. 
 
 William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) was 
 born at Calcutta, where his father was secretary to 
 the Board of Revenue. He was brought home at six, 
 showed an early taste for drawing, went to private 
 schools, and was at Charterhouse from 1822 to 1828. 
 It seems to have been a rough place in those days; 
 Thackeray showed no promise as a scholar, but made 
 a name by his humorous verses. His two years at 
 Trinity College, Cambridge, served to make some good 
 friends — Edward FitzGerald, Kinglake, Tennyson, and 
 Venables who had broken Thackeray's nose in a fight at 
 
220 • COMMENTARY 
 
 school. Some residence at Weimar gave him materials 
 for the later description of court life in Pumpernickel. 
 He read law in London, and tried to get his caricatures 
 published. Then his considerable fortune somehow dis- 
 appeared, he determined to be an artist, and in 1834 
 settled in Paris. There he married an Irish lady, and 
 was soon back in London, trying journalism. The 
 Yellowphish Papers in Fraser's Magazine (1838) is the 
 first work we associate with Thackeray. His wife 
 fell ill, and despite his devoted nursing had to be 
 sent to a home, where she long survived her husband 
 in a state of gentle imbecility. Much of his work, both 
 of pen and pencil, was now done in Punch, to which 
 he contributed the Snoh Papers that first made him 
 famous. His masterpiece. Vanity Fair, came out in 
 monthly numbers with his own illustrations (1847-48), 
 and gradually became popular. Pendennis, Lectures on 
 the English Humorists (given in England and America), 
 Esmond, The Newcomes, Lectures on the Four Georges 
 (given in America, and repeated all over England), 
 followed in succession. Thackeray was the first editor 
 of the Cornhill Magazine (1860-62); it was a great 
 success; several of his novels with his illustrations 
 came out in it ; and it brought him a welcome £4000 
 a year. In reading Thackeray we think of Shakespeare's 
 Cassius: 
 
 He is a great observer and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men; 
 
 but Tennyson held him " a lovable man,'* and he was 
 devoted to children. 
 
 Thomas Hood (1799-1845) was the son of a London 
 
NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES 221 
 
 bookseller. After some private schooling he entered a 
 merchant's counting-house at the age of thirteen, but 
 his health could not stand the confinement. Next he 
 was articled to an engraver, with the same result, and 
 then he took to literature. In 1824 he married a sister 
 of Keats's friend, J. H. Reynolds, and Lamb's pathetic 
 lines On an Infant Dying as soon as Born relate to their 
 first child. The long and pleasing Plea of the Mid- 
 summer Fairies appeared in 1827, and two years later 
 Hood became editor of The Gem, which printed much 
 good verse including the editor's Dream of Eugene 
 Aram. Then Hood experienced Scott's collapse with- 
 out having enjoyed his prosperity. The failure of a 
 publisher ruined him, but he was just as heroic as 
 Scott had been ; he refused the protection of the law, 
 and spent five years (1835-40) abroad, writing to clear 
 off his liabilities. Then he was editor of the New 
 Monthly Magazine for three years, and produced 
 therein his most characteristic long poem. Miss Kilman- 
 segg and her Precious Leg. The famous Song of a Shirt 
 appeared anonymously in Punch in 1843. His health 
 finally broke down in 1844, and he never again rose 
 from his bed. Hood was equally master of the most 
 grotesque wit and the most refined pathos. Few 
 poems can compare with The Bridge of Sighs, and 
 none with Miss Kilmansegg. The latter is a perfect 
 debauch of wit, pervaded by a grim earnestness of 
 satire which helps the reader through. 
 
 Francis Bret Harte (1839-92) was bom at Albany, 
 New York, the son of a schoolmaster. After the usual 
 
222 COMMENTARY 
 
 schooling he went to California at the age of seventeen, 
 and there played many parts — ^teacher, miner, printer, 
 express-messenger, secretary of the San Francisco 
 mint, and editor. Such experience supplied him with 
 valuable materials, but his first publication was liter- 
 ary in origin. Condensed Novels (reissued in 1870), a 
 series of parodies in miniature on well-known writers, 
 which may still be read with pleasure. His fame rests 
 on a few prose sketches of mining life, especially The 
 Luck of Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 
 and two or three poems. Probably few people have 
 read his forty-four volumes, but his best things are 
 inimitable. The sympathetic insight which made him 
 so good a parodist of literature, enabled him also to 
 divine the thoughts and feelings of those rough, in- 
 articulate characters which he drew so well. He was 
 in succession Professor in the University of California 
 and United States consul at Crefeld and at Glasgow; 
 from 1885 he lived in London doing literary work. 
 
EXERCISES 223 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 1. Which lines do you consider most pathetic in Nos. I., 
 II. and IV. ? 
 
 2. Point out the varieties of rhyme and rhythm in the 
 last stanza of No. IV. 
 
 3. Write the story of No. V. in ordinary prose, in the 
 order of events, and without direct speeches. 
 
 4. Read Kingsley's Sands of Dee and compare it with 
 No. VII. 
 
 5. Can you find any lines in No. VIII. where the 
 metaphor seems to have been suggested by the rhyme ? 
 
 6. In connection with No. X., consider how far the 
 truth of a story affects its impressiveness. 
 
 7. Illustrate No. XI. from Shakespeare's Henry V. 
 
 8. Make lists of the good and bad points in Cavaliers 
 and Roundheads (No. XII.). 
 
 9. Show how the play on the word ** Hawke " is kept 
 up in No. XIII. 
 
 10. Campbell had first written " cemetery " for the 
 last word of No. III.; why did he change it.? what is 
 the derivation ? 
 
 11. Look in your history for answers to Peterkin's 
 questions in No. XIV. 
 
 12. Read Paradise Lost, vii. ^53 ff-, and compare with 
 No. XX. 250 ff. 
 
 13. Why is the absence of a flag noticed in XX. 291 ? 
 
 14. Write the story of No. XXI. in prose, without any 
 speeches. 
 
 15. Read Arnold's Sohrah and Rustum, and compare 
 with No. XXII. 
 
 16. Parse "ill" in XXVIII. no, and give the sense of 
 
224 EXERCISES 
 
 1 10-14 i^ ordinary prose. What do you think of the last 
 stanza ? 
 
 17. Collect the similes in XXIX. and show their appro- 
 priateness. 
 
 18. In No. XXX. — give the meaning of *' Muse " (73); 
 illustrate the use of *' stole " (87). Has Shakespeare any- 
 thing like Hne 100? Explain ** their hostile gods " (145). 
 In what sense did Helen fire Troy ? (150). 
 
 19. In No. XXXI, what part of the sentence are 
 "face," ** beard," etc. (8)? What colour was Tyrian 
 purple, and how was it got? Why " eight times " (31).'* 
 Express Hne 27 in prose. What three " morals " are 
 drawn in the last stanza? What words through the 
 poem emphasise its mock-heroic character? 
 
 20. Explain " fly " in XXXV. 16, and " my own 
 hackney coach " (66). 
 
 21. Which of the writers, whose lines have been briefly 
 given above, valued money — above the necessary com- 
 petence ? and why did they ? 
 
 22. Class the foregoing poems as (i. ) narrative, (ii. ) lyrical, 
 and consider whether an intermediate class will be 
 necessary. 
 
 23. Choose any of the poems for independent criticism, 
 saying why you like or dislike it. 
 
 24. Make a list of other poems which you would like 
 to have included among the forty, and give your reasons 
 for rejecting those which you would remove to make 
 room. 
 
 25. Which of the writers would you like to have known 
 personally, and why ? 
 
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