A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

She dreamed of being alone on the sea-shore

Chained to a rock she knew not how, but stir She could not from the spot, and the loud roar Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threatening her;

And o'er her upper lip they seemed to pour

Until she sobbed for breath, and soon they were Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and high, Each broke to drown her, yet she could not die.

And wet and cold and lifeless at her feet,

Of pleasure and of pain, -even while I kiss

Thy garment's hem with transport, can it be That doubt should mingle with my filial joy? Deal with me as thou wilt, but spare this boy."

High and inscrutable the old man stood,

Calm in his voice, and calm within his eye, Not always signs with him of calmest mood: He looked upon her, but gave no reply; Then turned to Juan, in whose cheek the blood Oft came and went, as there resolved to die, In arms, at least, he stood in act to spring On the first foe whom Lambro's call might bring. "Young man, your sword"; so Lambro once more said:

Juan replied, "Not while this arm is free.” The old man's cheek grew pale, but not with dread, And drawing from his belt a pistol, he Replied, "Your blood be then on your own head." Then looked close at the flint, as if to see

Pale as the foam that frothed on his dead brow, Which she essayed in vain to clear, (how sweet And next proceeded quietly to cock. 'T was fresh, for he had lately used the lock, — Were once her cares, how idle seemed they now!) Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat

Of his quenched heart; and the sea-dirges low Rang in her sad ears like a mermaid's song, And that brief dream appeared a life too long.

And gazing on the dead, she thought his face
Faded, or altered into something new,
Like to her father's features, till each trace

More like and like to Lambro's aspect grew,· With all his keen worn look and Grecian grace; And, starting, she awoke, and what to view? O powers of heaven! what dark eye meets she there? 'Tis 't is her father's-fixed upon the pair!

Then shrieking, she arose, and shricking fell,
With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see
Him whom she deemed a habitant where dwell
The ocean-buried, risen from death to be
Perchance the death of one she loved too well:
Dear as her father had been to Haidee,
It was a moment of that awful kind,

I have seen such, — but must not call to mind.

Up Juan sprung to Haidee's bitter shriek,

And caught her falling, and from off the wall Snatched down his sabre, in hot haste to wreak Vengeance on him who was the cause of all: Then Lambro, who till now forbore to speak, Smiled scornfully, and said, "Within my call, A thousand scimitars await the word; Put up, young man, put up your silly sword."

And Haidee clung around him: "Juan, 't is'Tis Lambro,-'tis my father! Kneel with me,He will forgive us, yes, it must be, yes. O dearest father, in this agony

Lambro presented, and one instant more

Had stopped this canto, and Don Juan's breath, When Haidee threw herself her boy before ; Stern as hersire: "On me," she cried, "let death Descend, - the fault is mine; this fatal shore He found, but sought not. I have pledged my faith;

I love him, I will die with him: I knew Your nature's firmness, know your daughter's too."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

The father paused a moment, then withdrew His weapon, and replaced it; but stood still, And looking on her, as to look her through : "Not I," he said, "have sought this stranger's ill;

Not I have made this desolation: few

Would bear such outrage, and forbear to kill; Done thine, the present vouches for the past. But I must do my duty, - how thou hast "Let him disarm; or, by my father's head,

His own shall roll before you like a ball!" He raised his whistle, as the word he said, And blew; another answered to the call, And, rushing in disorderly, though led, And armed from boot to turban, one and all,

The second had his cheek laid open; but

The third, a wary, cool, old sworder, took The blows upon his cutlass, and then put

His own well in so well, ere you could look, His man was floored, and helpless, at his foot, With the blood running, like a little brook, From two smart sabre-gashes, deep and red, One on the arm, the other on the head. And then they bound him where he fell, and bore Juan from the apartment: with a sign, Old Lambro bade them take him to the shore, Where lay some ships which were to sail at nine. They laid him in a boat, and plied the oar

Until they reached some galliots, placed in line; On board of one of these, and under hatches, They stowed him, with strict orders to the watches.

The last sight Haidee saw was Juan's gore,

And he himself o'ermastered and cut down: His blood was running on the very floor,

Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own; Thus much she viewed an instant and no more, Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan ; On her sire's arm, which until now scarce held Her, writhing, fell she, like a cedar felled.

A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er ;

And her head drooped, as when the lily lies O'ercharged with rain: her summoned handmaids bore

Their lady to her couch, with gushing eyes;

Of herbs and cordials they produced their store, But she defied all means they could employ, Like one life could not hold, nor death destroy.

Days lay she in that state, unchanged, though chill,

With nothing livid, still her lips were red; She had no pulse, but death seemed absent still; No hideous sign proclaimed her surely dead; Corruption came not, in each mind to kill

All hope; to look upon her sweet face bred

Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall,

In time to his old tune; he changed the theme, And sung of love; the fierce name struck through all

Her recollection; on her flashed the dream Of what she was, and is, if ye could call

To be so being; in a gushing stream The tears rushed forth from her o'erclouded brain, Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.

Short solace, vain relief!-thought came too quick,

And whirled her brain to madness; she arose, As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick, And flew at all she met, as on her foes;

But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,

Purple the sails, and so perfuméd, that

Although her paroxysm drew towards its The winds were love-sick with them; the oars

close ;

Hers was a frenzy which disdained to rave,
Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.
Yet she betrayed at times a gleam of sense;
Nothing could make her meet her father's face,
Though on all other things with looks intense
She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;
Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence

Availed for either; neither change of place,
Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her
Senses to sleep, the power seemed gone forever.
Twelve days and nights she withered thus; at last,
Without a groan or sigh or glance to show

A parting pang, the spirit from her past;

were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion (cloth of gold of tissue),
O'erpicturing that Venus, where we see,
The fancy out-work nature; on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

AGRIPPA.
O, rare for Antony!
ENO. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids,
So many mermaids, tendered her i' the eyes,

And they who watched her nearest could not And made their bends adornings: at the helm know

She died, but not alone; she held within
A second principle of life, which might
Have dawned a fair and sinless child of sin;
But closed its little being without light,
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie withered with one
blight;

In vain the dews of heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.

Thus lived, thus died she; nevermore on her,
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth; her days and pleasures were
Brief, but delightful, — such as had not stayed
Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well
By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.

A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthronéd i' the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

AGR.

Rare Egyptian!
ENO. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper: she replied,

It should be better he became her guest;
Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,
Whom ne'er the word of "No" woman heard

The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl who ruled
In Coventry for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamoring, "If we pay, we
starve !

Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come,

Boring a little auger-hole in fear,

Peeped - but his eyes, before they had their
will,

She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode Were shrivelled into darkness in his head,
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And prayed him, "If they pay this tax, they
starve."

Whereat he stared, replying, half amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as these?". "But I would die," said
she.

He laughed, and swore by Peter and by Paul:
Then filliped at the diamond in her ear;
"O, ay, ay, ay, you talk!"—"Alas!" she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do."
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answered," Ride you naked through the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding, as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut and window barred.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She lingered, looking like a summer moon
Half dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazoned with armorial gold.

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listened round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouthed heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors through her pulses: the blind
walls

Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less through all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flowered elder-thicket from the field
Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall.

And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, passed and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless

noon

Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers,
One after one but even then she gained
Her bower; whence re-issuing, robed and crowned,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS.
THERE also was a NUN, a Prioress,
That in her smiling was full simple and coy;
Her greatest oath was but by Saint Eloy ;
And she was cleped Madame Eglantine.
Full well she sang the service divine,
Entuned in her nose full sweetly;
And French she spake full faire and fetisly,
After the school of Stratford at Bow,
For French of Paris was to her unknowe.
At meat was she well ytaught withall;
She let no morsel from her lips fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her sauce deep;
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep,
That no drop neer fell upon her breast.
In courtesie was set full much her lest.

And certainly she was of great disport,
And full pleasant, and amiable of port,

And took much pains to imitate the air
Of court, and hold a stately manner,
And to be thoughten high of reverence.
But for to speaken of her conscience,
She was so charitable and so piteous,
She would weep if that she saw a mouse
Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bled;
Two small hounds had she that she fed
With roasted flesh, and milk, and wasted bread,
But sore she wept if one of them were dead,
Or if men smote it with a staff smarte :
She was all conscience and tender heart.

Full seemely her wimple pinched was ;
Her nose was strait; her eyes were grey as

glass,
Her mouth full small, and thereto soft and red;
But certainly she had a fair forehead.

A good man there was of religion,
That was a poor PARSONE of a town ;
But rich he was in holy thought and work,
He was also a learned man, a clerk,
That Christ's gospel truely would preach.
His parishens devoutly would he teach,
Benigne he was and wondrous diligent,
And in adversity full patient:
And such he was yproved often times;
Full loth were he to cursen for his tithes,
But rather would he given, out of doubt,
Unto his poor parishioners about,

Of his offering, and eke of his substance;
He could in little thing have suffisance.
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder,
But he nor felt nor thought of rain or thunder,
In sickness and in mischief to visit
The farthest in his parish, much and oft,
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staff.
This noble ensample to his sheep he gave.
That first he wrought, and afterward he taught,
Out of the gospel he the words caught,
And this figure he added yet thereto,
That if gold rust, what should iron do?
And if a priest be foul, on whom we trust,
No wonder if a common man do rust;
Well ought a priest ensample for to give,
By his cleanness, how his sheep should live.
He set not his benefice to hire,
Or left his sheep bewildered in the mire,
And ran unto London, unto Saint Paul's,
To seeken him a chanterie for souls,
Or with a brotherhood to be withold:
But dwelt at home, and kept well his fold,
So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry.
He was a shepherd and no mercenarie,
And though he holy were, and virtuous,
He was to sinful men not dispiteous,
Nor of his speech dangerous nor high,
But in his teaching discrete and benigne.
To draw his folk to heaven, with fairness,
By good ensample, was his business :
But if were any person obstinate,
Whether he were of high or low estate,
Him would he reprove sharply for the nones,
A better priest I trow that nowhere is.
He waited after neither pomp ne reverence,

The lady laid her knitting down,

Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow. Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed,

Pundit or papist, saint or sinner,

He found a stable for his steed,

And welcome for himself, and dinner.

If, when he reached his journey's end,
And warmed himself in court or college,
He had not gained an honest friend,
And twenty curious scraps of knowledge;
If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor,
Good sooth, the traveller was to blame,
And not the vicarage or the vicar.
His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns;

It passed from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws which keep

The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep

For dressing eels or shoeing horses. He was a shrewd and sound divine,

Of loud dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line,

He 'stablished truth or startled error, The Baptist found him far too deep, The Deist sighed with saving sorrow, And the lean Levite went to sleep

And dreamt of eating pork to-morrow.

« Előző Tovább »

Könyvek