The wretched yet unconscious dame
Who wedded with her son.
Then horror fast on horror rose;
She, maddening, died beneath her woes,
Whilst, crownless, sightless, hopeless, he
Dared to outlive that agony.
Through many a trackless path and wild
The blind man and his duteous child
Wandered, till pitying Theseus gave
The shelter brief, the mystic grave:
One
weary heart finds rest at last.
But when to Thebes the maiden passed,
The god's stern wrath was there:
Her brothers each by other slain,
And one upon the bloody plain
Left festering in the sun and rain,
Tainting the very air.

For none, the haughty Creon said,
On pain of death should yield the dead
Burial or tear or sigh,

And for alone she feebly strove

her turret high

That smiling form beheld

his hunter crew;

Pleased she beheld whose

unacquainted eye Found in each varying scene a pleasure new, Nor yet had pomp fatigued

her sated view, Nor custom palled the gloss of royalty. Like some gay child, a simple bliss she

drew

From every gaud of feudal pageantry, And every broidered garb that swept in order by.

And, sooth, it was a brave and antic sight, Where plume and crest and tassel wildly blending,

And bended bow, and javelin flashing bright, Marked the gay squadron through the copse descending;

The greyhound, with his silken leash contending,

Wreathed the little neck, and on the falconer's hand,

With restless perch and pinions broad depending,

Each hooded goshawk kept her eager stand, And to the courser's tramp loud rang the hollow land.

And over all, in accents sadly sweet,

The mellow bugle poured its plaintive tone,

stone,

Sent to the woodland nymphs a softer

moan;

While, listening far, from forth some fallow brown,

The swinked ploughman left his work undone,

And the glad schoolboy from the neighboring

town

Sprang o'er each prisoning rail, nor recked his master's frown.

Her warm cheek pillowed on her ivory hand, Her long hair waving o'er the battlement, In silent thought Ganora kept her stand; Though feebly now the distant bugle sent Its fading sound, and on the brown hill's bent

Nor horse nor hound nor hunter's pomp was

seen,

Yet still she gazed on empty space intent, As one who, spellbound, on some haunted

green

Beholds a faëry show the twilight elms be

tween.

REGINALD HEBER.

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

WITH deep affection

And recollection

I often think of
Those Shandon bells,