The Classic and the Beautiful from the Literature of Three Thousand Years

SAL. Oh, art thou ready to forgive, my And dry the tear on many a hardy cheek brother

To pardon him who found one single error, One little failing. 'mid a splendid throng Of glorious qualities—

grave.

MAL. AD. Oh, stay thee, Saladin !
I did not ask for life: I only wished
To
carry thy forgiveness to the
No, emperor; the loss of Cesarea
Cries loudly for the blood of Malek Adhel;
Thy soldiers, too, demand that he who lost
What cost them many a weary hour to
gain

Should expiate his offences with his life.
Lo! even now they crowd to view my death,
Thy just impartiality. I go,

Pleased by my fate to add one other leaf
To thy proud wreath of glory. [Going.]
SAL. Thou shalt not.

[Enter ATTENDANT.] ATTEND. My lord, the troops, assembled by your order,

Unused to such a visitor. [Exit.]

SAL. These men, the meanest in society, The outcasts of the earth, by war, by nature, Hardened and rendered callous-these who claim

No kindred with thee, who have never heard
The accents of affection from thy lips,-
Oh, these can cast aside their vowed alle-
giance,

Throw off their long obedience, risk their lives,

To save thee from destruction, while I-
I, who cannot, in all my memory,

Call back one danger which thou hast not shared,

One day of grief, one night of revelry, Which thy resistless kindness hath not soothed,

Or thy gay smile and converse rendered sweeter;

I, who have thrice in the ensanguined field, Tumultuous throng the courts. The prince's When death seemed certain, only uttered.

death

Not one of them but vows he will not suffer.
The mutes have fled; the very guards rebel;
Nor think I in this city's spacious round
Can e'er be found a hand to do the office.
MAL. AD. Oh, faithful friends! [To AT-
TENDANT.] Thine shalt.

"Brother!"

And seen that form like lightning rush between

Saladin and his foes, and that brave breast
Dauntless exposed to many a furious blow
Intended for my own,-I could forget
That 'twas to thee I owed the very breath

Which sentenced thee to perish! Oh, 'tis A golden goblet from his saddle-bow

train

When, down the crags descending, of his | If Heaven did not in dearest love engage To dash the chalice down and mar the draught.

One cried, "O monarch, for thy life forbear!

"Coiled in these waters, at their fountainhead,

And causing them so feebly to distill,

A poisonous snake of hugest growth lies dead,

And doth with venom all the streamlet fill."

"Alas for us if we that love are fain

With wrath and blind impatience to re

pay

Which nothing but our weakness doth restrain

As he repaid his faithful bird that day;

"If an indignant eye we lift above, To lose some sparkling goblet ill content,

Dropped from his hand the cup; one look he Which, but for that keen watchfulness of

cast

Upon the faithful bird before his feet, Whose dying struggles now were almost

past,

For whom a better guardian had been. meet,

Then homeward rode in silence many a mile;

love,

With the silent bush-boy alone by my side

But if such thoughts did in his bosom When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,

The home of my childhood, the haunts of my With the death-fraught firelock in my hand,
prime,
The only law of the desert land;
All the passions and scenes of that rapturous But 'tis not the innocent to destroy,
For I hate the huntsman's savage joy.

time

When the feelings were young and the world

was new,

Afar in the desert I love to ride

Like fresh bowers of Paradise opening to With the silent bush-boy alone by my side,

With its scenes of oppression, corruption and And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

strife

The proud man's frown and the base man's

fear,

In the vlei where the wild ass is drinking his fill.

And the scorner's laugh and the sufferer's Afar in the desert I love to ride

tear, With the silent bush-boy alone by my side The malice and meanness and falsehood and O'er the brown Karroo, where the bleating follyDispose me to musing and dark melan- Of the spring-bok's fawn sounds plaincholy;

cry

tively,

When my bosom is full and my thoughts are Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane

high,

And my soul is sick with the bondsman's sigh,

In fields seldom cheered by the dew or the

rain,

And the stately koodoo exultingly bounds

Oh, then there is freedom and joy and pride Undisturbed by the bay of the hunter's Afar in the desert alone to ride.

hounds,

There is rapture to vault on the champing And the timorous quagha's wild whistling steed

neigh

And to bound away with the eagle's speed, Is heard by the fountain at fall of day,

And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste;
For she hies away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scooped their

nest,

Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view,
In the pathless depths of the parched Karroo.

As I sit apart by the caverned stone
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave alone,
And feel as a moth in the mighty Hand
That spread the heavens and heaved the
land,

A "still small voice" comes through the
wild

Like a father consoling his fretful child,
Which banishes bitterness, wrath and fear,
Saying, "Man is distant, but God is near!"

Afar in the desert I love to ride.
With the silent bush-boy alone by my side, Saying,
Away, away in the wilderness vast,

Where the white man's foot hath never
passed,

And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan-
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,
Which man hath abandoned from famine and
fear,

Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone,
With the twilight but from the old hollow
stone,

Where grass nor herb nor shrub takes root,
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot,
And the bitter melon for food and drink.
Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink;
A region of drought where no river glides,
Nor rippling brook with osier'd sides,
Where reedy pool nor mossy fountain,
Nor shady tree nor cloud-capped mountain,
Is found to refresh the aching eye,

But the barren earth and the burning sky,
And the blank horizon round and round,
Without a living sight or sound,
Tell to the heart, in its pensive mood,
That this is Nature's solitude.

And here, while the night-winds round me sigh

And the stars burn bright in the midnight

sky

THOMAS PRINGLE.

THE BLIND BOY.

OH, say, what is that thing called light

Which I must ne'er enjoy?

What are the blessings of the sight?
Oh, tell your poor blind boy!

You talk of wondrous things you see,
You
say the sun shines bright;

I feel him warm, but how can he
Or make it day or night?

My day or night myself I make

Whene'er I sleep or play;
And could I ever keep awake,

With me 'twere always day.

With heavy sighs I often hear

You mourn my hapless woe,
But sure with patience I can bear
A loss I ne'er can know.

Then let not what I cannot have

My cheer of mind destroy:
Whilst thus I sing I am a king,
Although a poor blind boy.

COLLEY CIBBER.

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The Classic and the Beautiful from the Literature of Three ..., Volume 4