He fixt his eyes upon the ground,
And thus confest, in faltering sound.
"'Twas base: but how could Rafen bear
That Gunlaug be to Helga dear?"
Paus'd had the conqueror: he had stood
And slowly wiped the welling blood,
With patience, pity, grief, had heard,
And had but Rafen spared that word,
His youthful head had not lain low..
Gunlaug scarce felt the fatal blow;
But hearing how could Rafen bear
That Gunlaug be to Helga dear!
Rage swell'd his heart and fired his eye,
And thro' the forest rang the cry,
"What! tho' thy treachery caught her vow,
God's vengeance! Rafen! e'er wert thou?"
Then hatred rising high with pain,
He smote the traitor's helm in twain.
CLIFTON in vain thy varied scenes invite,
The mossy bank, dim glade, and dizzy hight;
The sheep that, starting from the tufted thyme,
Untune the distant churchis mellow chime;
As o'er each limb a gentle horrour creeps,
And shakes above our heads the craggy steeps.
Pleasant I've thought it to pursue the rower
While light and darkness seize the changeful oar;
The frolic Naids drawing from below
A net of silver round the black canoe.
Now the last lonely solace must it be
To watch pale evening brood o'er land and sea,
Then join my friends and let those friends believe
My cheeks are moistened by the dews of eve.
WHILE the winds whistle round my cheerless
And the pale morning droops with winter's gloom;
While indistinct lie rude and cultured lands,
The ripening harvest and the hoary sands;
Alone, and destitute of every page
That fires the poet, or informs the sage,
Where shall my wishes, where my fancy rove,
Rest upon past or cherish promist love?
Alas! the past I never can regain,
Wishes may rise and tears may flow in vain.
Fancy, that shews her in her early bloom,
Throws barren sunshine o'er the unyielding tomb.
What then would passion, what would reason,
Sure, to retrace is worse than to pursue.
fiere will I sit, till heaven shall cease to lour, And happier Hesper bring the appointed hour; Gaze on the mingled waste of sky and sea, Think of my love, and bid her think of me. VOL. II.-26
HERE, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them.
And softer sighs, that know not what they want
Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seemed to show me with their nods
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
(Such I believed it must be ;) for sweet scents
Are the swift vehicles of stil sweeter thoughts,
And nurse and pillow the dull memory
That would let drop without them her best stores.
They bring me tales of youth and tones of love,
And 'tis and ever was my wish and way
To let all flowers live freely, and all die,
Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart,
Among their kindred in their native place.
I never pluck the rose; the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank
And not reproacht me; the ever-sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoil'd, nor lost one grain of gold.
I saw the light that made the glossy leaves
More glossy; the fair arm, the fairer cheek
Warmed by the eye intent on its pursuit ;
I saw the foot, that, altho half-erect
From its grey slipper, could not lift her up
To what she wanted: I held down a branch
And gathered her some blossoms, since their
hour
Was come, and bees had wounded them, and flies
Of harder wing were working their way thro
And scattering them in fragments under foot.
So crisp were some, they rattled unevolved,
Others, ere broken off, fell into shells,
For such appear the petals when detacht,
Unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow,
And like snow not seen thro, by eye or sun:
Yet every one her gown received from me
Was fairer than the first . . I thought not so,
But so she praised them to reward my care.
I said: you find the largest.
Cried she, is large and sweet.
She held one forth
Whether for me to look at or to take
She knew not, nor did I; but taking it
Would best have solved (and this she felt) her
doubts.
I dared not touch it ; for it seemed a part
Of her own self; fresh, full, the most mature
Of blossoms, yet a blossom; with a touch
To fall, and yet unfallen.
She drew back
The boon she tendered, and then, finding not
The ribbon at her waist to fix it in,
Dropt it, as loth to drop it, on the rest.
CHARLES LAMB was born in the Temple, London, February 18, 1775. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, where Coleridge was his school fellow. An impediment in his speech was all that prevented him from taking a university course and entering the church. In 1792 he became a clerk in the India House, where he remained steadily until 1825, when the company retired him with a pension. He has described this occurrence with mingled humor and pathos in his essay on "The Superannuated Man." His first publication was a small volume of poems, in whose composition Coleridge and Lloyd were his partners. In 1801 he published "John Woodvil," a tragedy of little merit. The dramatic literature of the Elizabethan age was his especial delight; he spent his evenings poring over ancient folios filled with it, and published "Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets."
He wrote a comedy, entitled "Mr. H.," which proved a failure, and he himself, being in a front seat, hissed as loudly as any. In his "Essays of Elia," which appeared first in the "London Magazine," he is frequently more poetical than in his poems. There are few like them, and none equal to them, in the language.
Lamb's sister Mary, in a fit of insanity, killed her mother. He then devoted himself to the care of this sister, gave up a marriage engage ment, and died a bachelor. Whenever Mary felt an attack of insanity coming on, they would go together across the fields to the mad-house, where he would leave her until it was past. He had a liberal salary, and was never obliged to write for bread, which perhaps was the reason he wrote so little. His friend T. N. Talfourd has written his life and edited his letters. Lamb died in London, December 27, 1834.
ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN.
I SAW where in the shroud did lurk
A curious frame of Nature's work.
A flow'ret crushed in the bud,
A nameless piece of Babyhood,
Was in her cradle-coffin lying;
Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:
So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb
For darker closets of the tomb !
She did but ope an eye, and put
A clear beam forth, then straight up shut
For the long dark: ne'er more to see
Through glasses of mortality.
Riddle of destiny, who can show
What thy short visit meant, or know
What thy errand here below?
Shall we say that Nature blind
Check'd her hand, and changed her mind,
Just when she had exactly wrought
A finish'd pattern without fault?
Could she flag, or could she tire,
Or lack'd she the Promethean fire
(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd)
That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?
Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure
Life of health, and days mature:
Woman's self in miniature !
Limbs so fair, they might supply
(Themselves now but cold imagery)
The sculptor to make Beauty by.
Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry,
That babe, or mother, one must die;
So in mercy left the stock,
And cut the branch; to save the shock
Of young years widow'd; and the pain,
When single state comes back again
To the lone man who, 'reft of wife,
Thenceforward drags a maimèd life?
The economy of Heaven is dark;
And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark,
Why human buds, like this, should fall,
More brief than fly ephemeral,
That has his day; while shrivell'd crones
Stiffen with age to stocks and stones;
And crabbed use the conscience sears
In sinners of an hundred years.
Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss.
Rites which custom does impose,
Silver bells and baby clothes;
Coral redder than those lips,
Which pale death did late eclipse;
Music framed for infants' glee,
Whistle never tuned for thee;
Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,
Loving hearts were they which gave them.
Let not one be missing; nurse,
See them laid upon the hearse
Of infant slain by doom perverse.
Why should kings and nobles have
Pictured trophies to their grave;
And we, churls, to thee deny
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