And hyacinth tufts in the covers made all the undergrowth blue As the eyes of the streamlet peeping its naiad-kept lilies through.

And madness shone ever diviner in the hunter's expectant gaze, And the air seemed rain-cool'd about him, so fresh were the

forest ways

With youngest dew-diamonded herbage, and delicate-burgeoning branches,

And deepening river-sounds opening up to the waterfall's glances.

Suddenly brighten'd the water; the flowers of the brim flush'd rosier.

Suddenly look'd Actaeon right into the sacred enclosure.
Suddenly saw he a hundred tapering female shapes lily-pale,
Pureness of air and water and soul for their only veil.

And fearless of male eyes gazing, Diana through irised air
Shower'd the clinging crystal from free-tossing limbs and hair.
The wave running over her insteps argent, Latona's heaven-eyed
daughter

View'd her unrivall'd whiteness beneath in the wavering water; More regally high from the shoulder transparent than all her following vestals,

Statelily purest in virgin beauty, the noblest of the celestials; Musing as muse the immortals upon their unutterable grace, Her vein'd high brow bending forward, a brooding light in her face,

Watching the cooing waters that brighten'd and beam'd as they passed her,

Glassing the nude refulgence of delectable alabaster.

So the hunter, young Actaeon, stood rapt for a little space On the edge of the dell, and panted, his marvelling soul in his face:

While upon his temples noble did laurel and cypress meet; Nor could he speak, nor retire, nor totter to fall at Phoebe's feet.

And lo, as the gods thus held him, there flash'd a sudden

storm

Of dazzling splendour and fearful, from Diana's dilated form, Serene in high indignation, superb in haughtiest scorn,

Terrible in its beauty of deadliness heaven-born;

That the constellations of maidens shrank scared in the pools and nooks

Nor dared encircle the awfulness of their incensed mistress' looks.

The small round neck lifting direly the exquisite menacing head, The curving nostril, the steel-blue eyeball striking the gazer dead;

Rejecting his true, pure homage-though even her scorn was sweet;

Smiting his life into darkness, and driving his dust from her feet.

Purity's anger, not pitying, even as python-slaying,

Bent the clear bow against innocence, fitting the arrow unstaying.

But Jove, the wielder of thunder, who smites for the righteous' sake,

Hid the young breath-despoiled hunter, and placed instead in the brake,

To appease the goddess, a roebuck, that bloodied the trampled ground,

Shot with Olympian arrows, and mangled by fangs of the

hound.

W. W.

Hamlet.

COUNT O'ER THE JOYS THINE HOURS HAVE SEEN,
COUNT O'ER THY DAYS FROM ANGUISH FREE.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life :

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

ΟΧΘΗΣΑΣ Δ' ΑΡΑ ΕΙΠΕ ΠΡΟΣ ΟΝ ΜΕΓΑΗΤΟΡΑ ΘΥΜΟΝ.

Τὸ ζῆν ἔτ ̓ ἢ τὸ μηκέθ', ἥδ ̓ ἄρ ̓ ἡ ῥοπή·
πότερά τι θάρσος εὐγενέστερον τρέφω
τύχης ἀσελγοῦς τόσα φέρων ὑπώπια,
ἢ 'ν τῷ συνάψαι τῇ πόνων ζάλῃ μάχην,
ἑλών θ ̓ ἁλῶναι, καὶ θανὼν ὕπνῳ πεσεῖν;
ὁμοῖον· οἷον δ ̓ ἡδὺ τῷδ ̓ ὕπνῳ φυγείν
τὸ δηξίθυμον καὶ τὸ μυρίον σίνος

ὧν ζῇ βροτὸς κληροῦχος ! οὐ καταστροφὴ
τρίλλιστος αὕτη, τό γε θανόνθ ̓ ὕπνῳ πεσεῖν ;
̓Αλλ ̓ οὖν ὕπνῳ τῷδ ̓ ἐνύπνι ̓ εἰ μόλοι τινά
ἡ βάσανος ἐνταῦθ'· ἐς γὰρ οὖν κοιμωμένους,
καὶ σώματος τοῦδ ̓ ἐκκυλισθέντας πεδῶν,
ἥκοι τάχ' ἄν που νυκτίφοιτα φάσματα·
(δεῖ καὶ μάλ' ὄκνου·) καί τις ὀρρωδῶν τάδε
μακροῦ βίου τὰ πήματ' ἐξαντλεῖ βίᾳ.
Τίς γὰρ τὰ κέντρ ̓ αἴκισμά τ' αἰῶνος θέλων
οἴσει, τυράννων θ' ὕβριν, ἐν δὲ τῶν ἄγαν
σεμνῶν προπηλακισμόν, ἢ τὸ δυστυχούς
ἔρωτος ἄλγος, τίς ποτ' ἀναβολὰς δικῶν,
τῶν δ ̓ ἐν τέλει τρυφήν τε καὶ λακτίσματα
τλήμων ὅσ ̓ ἀρετὴ καρτεροῦσ ̓ ἠνέσχετο
φαύλων ὑπ ̓ ἀνδρῶν, ἢν λύσις πάντων παρῇ
γυμνοῦ ξίφους ἕκατι ; τῶνδ ̓ ἀχθηδόνων
τίς ἂν τὸν ὄγκον ὑπομένοι βρυχώμενος
ἱδρῶν τε καμάτῳ τοῦ ταλαιπώρου βίου,
εἰ μή τι ταρβήσειε κατὰ τὰς νερτέρας
τὰς δυστεκμάρτους καὶ δυσεξόδους πλάκας
ὅθεν ἀνέκυψεν οὔτις ; ἐνθάδ' ἡ φρενών
ὁρμὴ πλανᾶται, καί τις οὖν στέργει συνὼν
κακοῖς παροῦσι μᾶλλον ἢ κάκ' ἄσκοπα
θηρᾶν ἀπόντ ̓ ἄπειρος. ὡς δόξης υπο
ἀποδειλιῶμεν πάντες· ὡς ἀμείβομεν

*

And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

SHAKESPEARE.

Faith unfaithful.

KING JOHN III. I.

PHIL. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.
PAND. So makest thou faith an enemy to faith

And like a civil war set'st oath to oath,
Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow
First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform’'d,
That is, to be the champion of our church!
What since thou sworest is sworn against thyself
And may not be performed by thyself,

For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss

Is not amiss when it is truly done,

And being not done, where doing tends to ill,
The truth is then most done not doing it :
The better act of purposes mistook
Is to mistake again; though indirect,
Yet indirection thereby grows direct,

And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire cools fire
Within the scorched veins of one newly-burn'd.

It is religion that doth make vows kept;

But thou hast sworn against religion,

By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,
And makest an oath the surety for thy truth

Against an oath.

SHAKESPEARE.