"Ah, wherefore?-Did not Hercules by force Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb Alcestis, a reanimated corse, Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom? Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years, And Æson stood a youth 'mid youthful peers. 84 "The Gods to us are merciful-and they Is love, though oft to agony distrest, And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast. "But if thou goest, I follow-" said; "Peace!" he She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered; The ghastly color from his lips had fled; 90 Brought from a pensive though a happy place. 96 He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel 102 Of all that is most beauteous-imaged there And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned 108 That privilege by virtue.-" Ill," said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, While tears were thy best pastime, day and night; 114 "And while my youthful peers before my eyes (Each hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports,-or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council, were detained: What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained. "The wished-for wind was given:-I then revolved The oracle, upon the silent sea; 120 And, if no worthier led the way, resolved That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,— Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand. 126 "Yet bitter, oft-times bitter was the pang When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife! On thee too fondly did my memory hang, And on the joys we shared in mortal life,The paths which we had trod-these fountains, flowers, My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers. 132 66 'But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, 'Behold they tremble!-haughty their array, Yet of their number no one dares to die?' In soul I swept the indignity away: Old frailties then recurred:- but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought. "And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government too slow; I counsel thee by fortitude to seek 138 The invisible world with thee hath sympathized; Be thy affections raised and solemnized. 1 144 “Learn by a mortal yearning, to ascend-- --- 150 Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears! Round the dear Shade she would have clung't is vain: The hours are past-too brief had they been years; And him no mortal effort can detain: Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, He through the portal takes his silent way, lay. 157 Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved, -Yet tears to human suffering are due; From out the tomb of him for whom she died; blight! 1815. William Wordsworth. 174 KILMENY From The Queen's Wake BONNY Kilmeny gaed up the glen; And pu' the cress-flower round the spring,- And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame. 13 When many a day had come and fled, When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, When mass for Kilmeny's soul had been sung, When the bedesman had prayed, and the dead bell rung; } Late, late in a gloamin, when all was still, |