Ill fares the land to hast'ning ills a prey (1)
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.'
But how much more unfortunate are those
Where wealth declines and population grows!

(1)This line is execrable; and I note it.
I quote it as the faulty poet wrote it.

Within a gloomy charnel-house one day

I view'd the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were grey.

Close pack'd they stand, that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones, that to the death contended,

Are lying cross'd, to lie for ever, fated.
What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?

No one now asks; and limbs with vigour fired,
The hand, the foot their use in life is ended.

Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;
Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye're driven

Back into daylight by a force inspired;
But none can love the wither'd husk, though even

A glorious noble kernel it contained.
To me, an adept, was the writing given

Which not to all its holy sense explaine...

ACT I. Sc. I

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.

T. What is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me?

W. You came by Caerwys, sir?

T.    I came by Caerwys.

W.    There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle.

T. Your uncle met the messenger - met me; and this the message:
Lord Beuno comes to-night.

W.    To-night, sir!

T.    Soon, now: therefore
Have all things ready in his room.

W.    There needs but little doing.

T. Let what there needs be done. Stay! with him one com- panion,
His deacon, Dirvan Warm: twice over must the welcome be,
But both will share one cell. This was good news, Gwenvrewi.

W. Ah yes!

T. Why, get thee gone then; tell thy moth...

Alone at last! Nothing is to be heard but the rattle of a few tardy and tired-out cabs. There will be silence now, if not repose, for several hours at least.
At last the tyranny of the human face has disappeared I shall not suffer except alone. At last it is permitted me to refresh myself in a bath of shadows. But first a double turn of the key in the lock. It seems to me that this turn of the key will deepen my solitude and strengthen the barriers which actually separate me from the world.
A horrible life and a horrible city! Let us run over the events of the day. I have seen several literary men ; one of them wished to know if he could get to Russia by land (he seemed to have an idea that Russia was an island) ; I have disputed generously enough with the editor of a review, who to each objection replied: "We take the part of r...

Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,
Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;
From out her form a pearly light is shed,
As from a lily, in a lily-bed,
A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,
And languid as a cloud that drifts alone
In starry heav'n. And her diaphanous feet
Are easy as the dew or opaline heat
Of summer.

Lo! with ears aurora pink
As Dawn's she leans and listens on the brink
Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,
Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,
And palpitations beat like some huge heart
Of Earth the surging pulse of which we're part.

One hand, that hollows her divining eyes,
Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies;
And with her gaze she fathoms life and death
Gulfs, where man's cons...

Two fairies it was
On a still summer day
Came forth in the woods
With the flowers to play.
The flowers they plucked
They cast on the ground
For others, and those
For still others they found.
Flower-guided it was
That they came as they ran
On something that lay
In the shape of a man.
The snow must have made
The feathery bed
When this one fell
On the sleep of the dead.
But the snow was gone
A long time ago,
And the body he wore
Nigh gone with the snow.
The fairies drew near
And keenly espied
A ring on his hand
And a chain at his side.
They knelt in the leaves
And eerily played
With the glittering things,
And were not afraid.
And when they went home
To hide in their burrow,
They took them along...

Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport[570]


1.

The Moorish King rides up and down.
Through Granada's royal town:
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama![hv][571]

2.

Letters to the Monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Alhama!

3.

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Woe is me, Alhama!

4.

When the Alhambra walls he gained,
On the moment he ordained
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion...

Brave was the foeman! well he held his ground!
But here defeat at kindred hands he found!
The shafts rained on him, in a righteous cause,
Came from the quiver of Old England's laws!

He fought in vain; and on this spot went down
The jus divinum, and the kingly crown.
But for those scenes Time long has made amends.
The ancient enemies are present friends;
Two swords, in Massachusetts, rich in dust,
And, better still, the peacefulness of rust,
Told the whole story in its double parts
To one who lives in two great nations' hearts;
And late above Old England's roar and din
Slow-tolling bells spoke sympathy of kin:
Victoria's wreath blooms on the sleeping breast
Of him just gone to his reward and rest,
And firm and fast between two mighty Powers
Ne...

God let me fall from His hand
One day at His forge when the elemental world
Was shaping. I am but a breath from His great bellows,
But here among the workshops of mankind
I am a fateful scourge.

I tear red strips from the proud cities of men;
I name my passage the Highway of Instant Death;
I splinter world-old forests with my laugh,
And whirl the ancient snows of Hecla sheer into Orion's eyes.
I dance on the deep under the big Indian stars,
And wrap the water spout about my sinuous hips
As a dancer winds her girdle. The ocean's horrid crew,
The octopus, the serpent, and the shark, with the heart of a coward,
Plunge downward when they hear my feet above on the sea-floor,
And hide in their slimy coverts. Brave men pray upon the straining decks
Till comes my moo...

In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.

He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers
No easier nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.

The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
And on her head was hurled.

The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.

So well she mused, a morning broke
Across her spirit grey;
A conquering, new-born joy awoke,
And filled her life with day.

"Poor world," she cried, "so deep accurst
That runn'st from pole to pole
To seek a drau...

All day the nations climb and crawl and pray
In one long pilgrimage to one white shrine,
Where sleeps a saint whose pardon, like his peace,
Is wide as death, as common, as divine.

His statue in an aureole fills the shrine,
The reckless nightingale, the roaming fawn,
Share the broad blessing of his lifted hands,
Under the canopy, above the lawn.

But one strange night, a night of gale and flood,
A sound came louder than the wild wind's tone;
The grave-gates shook and opened: and one stood
Blue in the moonlight, rotten to the bone.

Then on the statue, graven with holy smiles,
There came another smile--tremendous--one
Of an Egyptian god. 'Why should you rise?
'Do I not guard your secret from the sun?

The nations come; they kneel among the f...

I am banished from the patient men who fight.
They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.
Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light.
Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight
They went arrayed in honour. But they died, -
Not one by one: and mutinous I cried
To those who sent them out into the night.

The darkness tells how vainly I have striven
To free them from the pit where they must dwell
In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven
By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
Love drives me back to grope with them through hell;
And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.

"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sotrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning."
And then She:
"Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"
Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."
The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he s...

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF MUSIC."


    ... Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,
In wells of rock water and snow,
Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingers
O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;
Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow....

And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,
And soft as the fall of the dew,
Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,
To me was the Dawn when on mountains
Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,
Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,
Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,
In dimples of light and of fire,
Planting her footprints in roses
On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing
Large on her brow is her tire,
Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.

But sweet as the incense from altars,
And war...

There is no break in all the wide grey sky,
Nor light on any field, and the wind grieves,
And talks of death. Where cold grey waters lie
Round greyer stones, and the new-fallen leaves
Heap the chill hollows of the naked woods,
A lisping moan, an inarticulate cry,
Creeps far among the charnel solitudes,
Numbing the waste with mindless misery.
In these bare paths, these melancholy lands,
What dream, or flesh, could ever have been young?
What lovers have gone forth with linkèd hands?
What flowers could ever have bloomed, what birds have sung?
Life, hopes, and human things seem wrapped away,
With shrouds and spectres, in one long decay.

1.

Oh! had my Fate been join'd with thine, [1]
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.


2.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.


3.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another. [1]


4.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my Rival smile in joy,
For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him.


5.

Ah! since thy angel form ...

The grave is deep and soundless,
Its brink is ghastly lone;
With veil all dark and boundless
It hides a land unknown.

The nightingale's sweet closes
Down there come not at all;
And friendship's withered roses
On the mossy hillock fall.

Their hands young brides forsaken
Wring bleeding there in vain;
The cries of orphans waken
No answer to their pain.

Yet nowhere else for mortals
Dwells their implored repose;
Through none but those dark portals
Home to his rest man goes.

The poor heart, here for ever
By storm on storm beat sore,
Its true peace gaineth never
But where it beats no more.

There was a young lady named Ruth,
Who had a great passion for truth.
    She said she would die
    Before she would lie,
And she died in the prime of her youth.