EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE.

1849

THE SUPPLIANT.

Beneath the poplars o'er the sacred pool
The halcyons dart like rays of azure light:
Fair presage! By the columns white and cool
I'll watch to-night.

Perchance the Goddess, at the twilight's breath,
Will come with silver feet and braidless hair
And, all too startled to decree my death,
Will hearken to my prayer.

So when at moon-rise by the farm I go,
The lovely girl who near the fig-tree stands
May turn no more on scornful feet and slow,
But hold out both her hands.

THEOPHILE MARZIALS.

1850

RONDEL.

To-day what is there in the air

That makes December seem sweet May?
There are no swallows anywhere,
Nor crocuses to crown your hair
And hail you down my garden way.
Last night the full moon's frozen stare
Struck me, perhaps ; or did you say
Really-you'd come, sweet Friend and fair!
To-day?

To-day is here: come! crown to-day
With Spring's delight or Spring's despair!
Love can not bide old Time's delay :-
Down my glad gardens light winds play,
And my whole soul shall bloom and bear

To-day.

PAKENHAM THOMAS BEATTY.

1855

IN MY DREAMS.

Come to me in my dreams, and say
Sweet words I never hear by day,
And murmur lovingly and low,
And take my hand and kiss my brow!

And I will whisper all night through
What I can only say to you:

My hopes I had, my life I plann'd,
That only you can understand.

Rest with me, Love! until the day;
Then kiss me once, and pass away!
And let me waken, Dear! to weep,
You can but kiss me in my sleep.

ANDREW LANG.

1844

IN ITHACA.

'Tis thought Odysseus, when the strife was o'er With all the waves and wars, a weary while, Grew restless in his disenchanted isle,

And still would watch the sunset, from the shore,
Go down the waves of gold; and evermore
His sad heart follow'd after, mile on mile,
Back to the Goddess of the magic wile-
Calypso, and the love that was of yore.
Thou too, thy haven gain'd, must turn thee yet
To look across the sad and stormy space,
Years of a youth as bitter as the sea,
Ah! with a heavy heart and eyelids wet:
Because within a fair forsaken place

The life that might have been is lost to thee.

WILLIAM DAVIES.

1829

DOING AND BEING.

Think not alone to do right and fulfil
Life's due perfection by the simple worth
Of lawful actions call'd by justice forth,
And thus condone a world confused with ill!
But fix the high condition of thy will

To be right, that its good's spontaneous birth
May spread like flowers springing from the earth
On which the natural dews of heaven distil!
For these require no honours, take no care
For gratitude from men,—but more are bless'd
In the sweet ignorance that they are fair;
And through their proper functions live and rest,
Breathing their fragrance on the joyous air,
Content with praise of bettering what is best.

1

NOTES.

WORDSWORTH. Born at Cockermouth, Cumberland. Wordsworth belongs to the close of the eighteenth century as well as to half of the nineteenth. His Evening Walk was written in 1793; his Lyrical Ballads were published in 1798. Peter Bell also was written in 1798, though not pub. lished till 1815. NATURE'S DARLING bears date of 1799; the ODE TO DUTY, 1805; the INVOCATION TO THE POWER OF SOUND and the TRIAD, 1828; the SONNET-"Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne," 1836. Of his two longest poems, the Excursion came out in 1814; the Prelude, begun in his early days, was not published till after his death. In later editions of the ODE TO DUTY the last two lines of the second stanza read as follows:

O, if through confidence misplaced

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast!

COLERIDGE, "logician, metaphysician, and bard," as Lamb calls him, born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, belongs almost wholly to the eighteenth century, little of his poetry being written later, except in 1814-16 the tragedy of Zapolya. Christabel, first printed in 1816, had been mainly written in 1797. So also Remorse, a tragedy, acted in 1813. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was printed with Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, 1798; and in 1798-1800 he translated from Schiller's MSS., for simultaneous publication in Germany and England, the Piccolomini and Death of Wallenstein, which Carlyle praised as "the best translation from German then produced, except Sotheby's Oberon." GENEVIEVE may be taken as of his earliest, the poems at pp. 24, 25, as of his latest writing. GENEVIEVE is only part of the poem as originally written for introduction to a longer poem never completed. Coleridge himself struck out some stanzas at the beginning and end, and published it as a complete

poem, on Love, in its present form. One stanza, that beginning “And how he cross'd-" (p. 21), seems to have been inadvertently dropped, and is omitted from the usual copies.

SOUTHEY, born at Bristol, had also written before 1800: Joan of Arc, Wat Tyler, and many minor poems. Thalaba the Destroyer is dated 1800; Madoc, 1805. The Curse of Kehama was begun in 1801 and finished in 1809; and Roderick, the last of the Goths, begun in 1809 and finished in 1814. These are his principal works, quasi epics (except Wat Tyler): all of weight and considerable worth. The HOLLY TREE was written in 1798; the SCHOLAR in 1818.

TANNAHILL. A Scottish minor poet. The "Lake poets have been kept together partly on account of their early work before the present century: so Tannahill may follow, his poems being chiefly of the same date. He was dead before Hogg, born two years earlier, had done anything of mark.

Gart is forced, compelled; tine-lose; dowie-doleful; a' my lane-all alone; daffin-joking; short syne-a short time ago; aboon-above; wair'd-spent ; coft-bought; fa'-fall; gowden-golden; gloaming—twilight.

SCOTT (Sir Walter). Born at Edinburgh. The Poet preceded the Novelist. The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (with some ballads by himself) was published in 1802; the Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1805; Marmion, 1808; Lady of the Lake, 1810; Vision of Don Roderick, 1811; Rokeby and the Bridal of Triermain, 1813; Lord of the Isles, 1814. In 1814 appeared Waverley, the first of the novels.

The PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU was written for Campbell's Albyn Anthology in 1816; JOCK O' HAZELDEAN also, except the first stanza, which "is ancient." LIGHT LOVE will be found in Rokeby; the DEATHCHANT in Guy Mannering; and PROUD MAISIE in the Heart of MidLothian.

Loot is let; birn-lightning.

MONTGOMERY.

Another Scottish-born poet. His lengthier poems are the Wanderer in Switzerland, 1806; the World before the Flood, 1812; Greenland, 1819; the Pelican Island, 1828. He wrote also Songs and Hymns. As Editor of the Sheffield Iris he was in 1795 imprisoned for "seditious" writing.