MAY. 109 MAY. BY J. G. PERCIVAL. I FEEL a newer life in every gale; And with their welcome breathings fill the sail, Of hours that glide unfelt away Beneath the sky of May. The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls From his blue throne of air, And where his whispering voice in music falls, Beauty is budding there; The bright ones of the valley break Their slumbers and awake. The waving verdure rolls along the plain, To welcome back its playful mates again, And from its darkening shadow floats Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May; With the light dallying of the west-wind play, As gladly to their goal they run, 110 THE GLADIATOR. THE GLADIATOR. BY J. A. JONES. THEY led a lion from his den, The lord of Afric's sun-scorched plain; There's not of all Rome's heroes, ten His bright eye naught of lightning lacked; They brought a dark-haired man along, Whose limbs with gyves of brass were bound; Youthful he seemed, and bold, and strong, And yet unscathed of wound. Blithely he stepped among the throng, And careless threw around A dark eye, such as courts the path Then shouted the plebeian crowd- THE GLADIATOR. Joy was upon that dark man's face, "He has a martial heart," thou sayest, A hero, when he fights for life, And home, and country,-babes, and wife. And thus I for the strife prepare ; The broad orb; but to lion's wrath And he has bared his shining blade, His long and loud death-howl is made, And when the multitude were calm, 'Kneel down, Rome's emperor beside:' 111 112 THE GLADIATOR. "Thou 'rt the bravest youth that ever tried To lay a lion low; And from our presence forth thou go'st Then flushed his cheek, but not with pride, No Roman wealth nor rank can give 'My wife sits at the cabin door, With throbbing heart and swollen eyes; She speaks of sundered ties. She bids my tender babes deplore 'I cannot let these cherubs stray He is gone-no golden bribes divide The Dacian from his babes and bride. DIRGE OF ALARIC. 113 DIRGE OF ALARIC. BY E. EVERETT. Alaric the Visigoth stormed and spoiled the city of Rome, and was afterwards buried in the channel of the river Busentius, the water of which had been diverted from its course that the body might be interred. WHEN I am dead, no pageant train Shall waste their sorrows at my bier, Ye shall not raise a marble bust In hollow circumstance of woes; Ye shall not pile, with servile toil, Lay down the wreck of power to rest; |