And all his fury fled :—a dead calm fell
That instant on him :-speechless fixed he stood,
And with a look that never wandered, gazed
Intensely on the corse. Those laughing eyes
Were not yet closed-and round those pouting lips
The wonted smile returned.
The father stands :-no tear is in his eye :—
The thunders bellow-but he hears them not:
The ground lifts like a sea-he knows it not :—
The strong walls grind and gape :—the vaulted roof
Takes shapes like bubbles tossing in the wind:—
See! he looks up and smiles ;—for death to him
Is happiness. Yet could one last embrace
Be given, 'twere still a sweeter thing to die.
It will be given. Look! how the rolling ground,
At every swell, nearer and still more near
Moves towards the father's outstretched arm his boy:-
Once he has touched his garment;-how his eye
Lightens with love-and hope-and anxious fears!
Ha! See! he has him now!-he clasps him round-
Kisses his face ;-puts back the curling locks
That shaded his fine brow :-looks in his eyes—
Grasps in his own those little dimpled hands—
Then folds him to his breast, as he was wont
To lie when sleeping-and resigned awaits
Undreaded death.
And death came soon and swift,
The huge pile sunk down at once Into the opening earth. Walls-arches-roofAnd deep foundation-stones-all mingling fell!
"ROOм for the leper! room!"-And as he came, The cry passed on-" Room for the leper! room!” Sunrise was slanting on the city gates
Rosy and beautiful; and from the hills
The early-risen poor were coming in,
Duly and cheerfully, to their toil; and up
Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels, and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city murmur swells.
"Room for the leper!" and aside they stood,
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood-all
Who met him on the way-and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper, with the ashes on his brow
Sack-cloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering, stepping painfully and slow,
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying, "Unclean! unclean!"
'Twas daybreak now,
When at the altar of the temple stood
The holy priest of God. The incense-lamp
Burned with a struggling light, and a low chaunt
Swelled thro' the hollow arches of the roof
Like an articulate wail; and there alone,
To ghastly thinness shrunk, the leper knelt-
The echoes of the melancholy strain
Died in the distant aisles; and he rose up,
Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head
Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off
His costly raiment for the leper's garb,
Then, with his sack-cloth round him, and his lips
Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still
Depart! depart, O child "Of Israel from the temple of thy God!
For He hath smote thee with His chastening rod, "And to the desert wild,
From all thou lov'st, away thy feet must flee,
That from thy plague His people may be free."
And he went forth-alone; not one of all
The many whom he loved, nor she whose name
Was woven in the fibres of his heart,
Breaking within him now, to come and speak
Comfort unto him-yea, he went his way,
Sick and heart-broken, and alone.
The leper knelt beside a stagnant pool
In the lone wilderness, and bathed his brow,
Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched
The loathsome water to his fevered lips,
Praying that he might be so blessed—to die!
Footsteps approached, and, with no strength to flee,
He drew the covering closer to his lip,
Crying, "Unclean! unclean!" and, in the folds
Of the coarse sack-cloth, shrouding up his face,
He fell upon the earth till they should pass.
Nearer the stranger came, and bending o'er
The prostrate form, pronounced the leper's name ;-
The voice was music, and disease's pulse
Beat for a moment with restoring thrill :
and stood;
The stranger gazed awhile, As if his heart were moved, then stooping down, He took a little water in his palm,
And laid it on his brow, and said, "Be clean!" And lo! the scales fell from him, and his blood Coursed with delicious coolness through the veins ; His palms grew moist, the leprosy was cleansed; He fell and worshipped at the feet of Jesus.
THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND
ANDROMACHE.
Too daring prince, ah, whither dost thou run?
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he!
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain.
O grant me, gods, ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of Heaven, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows, as they first begun.
No parent now remains, my griefs to share,
No father's aid, no mother's tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapped our walls in fire,
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire!
His fate compassion in the victor bred;
Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead;
His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil,
And laid him decent on the funeral pile :
Then raised a mountain where his bones were burned:
The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorned :
Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow
A barren shade, and in his honour grow.
By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell:
While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed,
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled!
My mother lived to bear the victor's bands,
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands;
Redeemed too late, she scarce beheld again
Her pleasing empire and her native plain,
When ah! oppressed by life-consuming woe,
She fell a victim to Diana's bow.
Yet while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee:
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all,
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall.
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share :
O prove a husband's and a father's care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy :
Thou from this tower defend the important post,
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host;
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his trai
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven:
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy.
The chief replied: That post shall be my care;
Not that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renowned,
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground,
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame?
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to the embattled plains:
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father's glories, and my own.
Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates:
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
The day when thou, imperial Troy, must bend,
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end—
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother's death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore,
As thine, Andromache! thy griefs I dread;
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led,
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes, of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring.
There, while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry, Behold the mighty Hector's wife!
Some haughty Greek, who loves thy tears to see,
Embitters all thy woes, by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!
May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
Press'd with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep.
Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hastened to relieve his child;
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground.
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