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

Her place is empty, and another comes)
In anguish, in the ghastliness of death;
Hers nevermore to leave those mournful walls,
Even on her bier.

'Tis over; and the rite,
With all its pomp and harmony, is now
Floating before her. She arose at home,
To be the show, the idol of the day;
Her vesture gorgeous, and her starry head,
No rocket, bursting in the midnight sky,
So dazzling. When to-morrow she awakes,
She will awake as though she still was there,
Still in her father's house; and lo, a cell
Narrow and dark, naught through the gloom
discerned,

Naught save the crucifix and rosary,
And the gray habit lying by to shroud
Her beauty and grace.

When on her knees she fell,
Entering the solemn place of consecration,
And from the latticed gallery came a chant
Of psalms, most saint-like, most angelical,
Verse after verse sung out, how holily!
The strain returning, and still, still returning,
Methought it acted like a spell upon her,
And she was casting off her earthly dross ;
Yet was it sad and sweet, and, ere it closed,
Came likea dirge. When her fair head was shorn,
And the long tresses in her hands were laid,
That she might fling them from her, saying,
"Thus,

IPHIGENEIA AND AGAMEMNON.

IPHIGENEIA, when she heard her doom
At Aulis, and when all beside the king
Had gone away, took his right hand, and said:
"O father! I am young and very happy.
I do not think the pious Calchas heard
Distinctly what the goddess spake; old age
Obscures the senses. If my nurse, who knew
My voice so well, sometimes misunderstood,
While I was resting on her knee both arms,
And hitting it to make her mind my words,
And looking in her face, and she in mine,
Might not he, also, hear one word amiss,
Spoken from so far off, even from Olympus?"
The father placed his cheek upon her head,
And tears dropt down it; but the king of men
Replied not. Then the maiden spake once more:
"O father! sayest thou nothing? Hearest thou

not

Me, whom thou ever hast, until this hour,
Listened to fondly, and awakened me
To hear my voice amid the voice of birds,
When it was inarticulate as theirs,

Thus I renounce the world!" When all was And the down deadened it within the nest ?"

changed,

And as a nun in homeliest guise she knelt,
Veiled in her veil, crowned with her silver crown,
Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ,
Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees
Fail in that hour! Well might the holy man,
He at whose foot she knelt, give as by stealth
('T was in her utmost need; nor, while she lives,
Will it go from her, fleeting as it was)
That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love
And pity!

Like a dream the whole is fled;
And they that came in idleness to gaze
Upon the victim dressed for sacrifice
Are mingling with the world; thou in thy cell
Forgot, Teresa! Yet among them all
None were so formed to love and to be loved,
None to delight, adorn; and on thee now
A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropped
Forever! In thy gentle bosom sleep
Feelings, affections, destined now to die ;

He moved her gently from him, silent still;
And this, and this alone, brought tears from her,
Although she saw fate nearer. Then with sighs:
"I thought to have laid down my hair before
Benignant Artemis, and not dimmed
Her polished altar with my virgin blood;
I thought to have selected the white flowers
To please the nymphs, and to have asked of each
By name, and with no sorrowful regret,
Whether, since both my parents willed the change,
I might at Hymen's feet bend my clipt brow;
And (after these who mind us girls the most)
Adore our own Athene, that she would
Regard me mildly with her azure eyes,
But, father, to see you no more, and see
Your love, O father! go ere I am gone!"
Gently he moved her off, and drew her back,
Bending his lofty head far over hers;
And the dark depths of nature heaved and burst.
He turned away,
- not far, but silent still.
She now first shuddered; for in him, so nigh,

So long a silence seemed the approach of death,
And like it. Once again she raised her voice:
"O father! if the ships are now detained,
And all your vows move not the gods above,
When the knife strikes me there will be one prayer
The less to them; and purer can there be
Any, or more fervent, than the daughter's prayer
For her dear father's safety and success?"
A groan that shook him shook not his resolve.
An aged man now entered, and without
One word stepped slowly on, and took the wrist
Of the pale maiden. She looked up, and saw
The fillet of the priest and calm, cold eyes.
Then turned she where her parent stood, and cried:
"O father! grieve no more; the ships can sail."

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

THE CURSE OF KEHAMA.

I CHARM thy life,
From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent's tooth,

And the beast of blood.
From sickness I charm thee,
And time shall not harm thee;

But earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And water shall hear me,
And know thee and flee thee:
And the winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee,
And the dews shall not wet thee
When they fall nigh thee.
And thou shalt seek death,
To release thee, in vain ;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign,

With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain.

And sleep shall obey me,

And visit thee never,

And the curse shall be on thee Forever and ever.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

QUEEN. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue

Such an act,

In noise so rude against me?
HAM.
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
QUEEN.

Ah me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index? HAM. Look here, upon this picture, and on

this,

HAMLET REPROACHING THE QUEEN. Could not so mope.

FROM HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.”

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

HAMLET. Leave wringing of your hands: To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

peace! sit you down,

And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damnéd custom have not brazed it so,
That it is proof and buiwark against sense.

And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.

QUEEN.

O Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinet.

O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAM.
A murderer, and a villain;
A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a Vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards ! — What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN. Alas, he's mad!

HAM. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

GHOST. Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul,
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works,
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAM.

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have uttered: bring me to the test
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woe, for leave to do him good.
QUEEN. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart

in twain !

HAM. O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
Once more, good night :

And when you are desirous to be blessed,
I'll blessing beg of you.

I must be cruel, only to be kind :

COUNTESS LAURA.

SHAKESPEARE

How is it with you, lady? Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
QUEEN. Alas, how is 't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
HAM. On him! on him! Look you, how pale
he glares!

His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. Do not look upon

me;

Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then, what I have to do
Will want true color; tears, perchance, for blood.
QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?
HAM.
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
HAM. Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN.

No, nothing, but ourselves. HAM. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! [Exit Ghost.

Ir was a dreary day in Padua.
The Countess Laura, for a single year
Fernando's wife, upon her bridal bed,
Like an uprooted lily on the snow,
The withered outcast of a festival,

Lay dead. She died of some uncertain ill,
That struck her almost on her wedding day,
And clung to her, and dragged her slowly down,
Thinning her cheeks and pinching her full lips,
Till, in her chance, it seemed that with a year
Full half a century was overpast.

In vain had Paracelsus taxed his art,
And feigned a knowledge of her malady;
In vain had all the doctors, far and near,
Gathered around the mystery of her bed,
Draining her veins, her husband's treasury,
And physic's jargon, in a fruitless quest
For causes equal to the dread result.
The Countess only smiled when they were gone,
Hugged her fair body with her little hands,
And turned upon her pillows wearily,
As though she fain would sleep no common sleep,
But the long, breathless slumber of the grave.

She hinted nothing. Feeble as she was, The rack could not have wrung her secret out. The Bishop, when he shrived her, coming forth, Cried, in a voice of heavenly ecstasy, "O blessed soul! with nothing to confess Save virtues and good deeds, which she mistakes

So humble is she-for our human sins!"
Praying for death, she tossed upon her bed
Day after day; as might a shipwrecked bark
That rocks upon one billow, and can make
No onward motion towards her port of hope.
At length, one morn, when those around her said,
Surely the Countess mends, so fresh a light
Beams from her eyes and beautifies her face,'
One morn in spring, when every flower of earth
Was opening to the sun, and breathing up
Its votive incense, her impatient soul
Opened itself, and so exhaled to heaven.
When the Count heard it, he reeled back a pace;
Then turned with anger on the messenger;
Then craved his pardon, and wept out his heart
Before the menial; tears, ah me! such tears
As love sheds only, and love only once.

And clung around it, buffeting the air
With one wild arm, as though a drowning man
Hung to a spar and fought against the waves.
The Count resumed: "I came not here to grieve,
Nor see my sorrow in another's eyes.
Who 'll paint the Countess, as she lies to-night
In state within the chapel? Shall it be
That earth must lose her wholly? that no hint
Of her gold tresses, beaming eyes, and lips
That talked in silence, and the eager soul
That ever seemed outbreaking through her clay,
And scattering glory round it, - shall all these
Be dull corruption's heritage, and we,
Poor beggars, have no legacy to show
That love she bore us? That were shame to love,
And shame to you, my masters." Carlo stalked
Forth from his easel stiffly as a thing
Moved by mechanic impulse. His thin lips,
And sharpened nostrils, and wan, sunken cheeks,
And the cold glimmer in his dusky eyes,
Made him a ghastly sight. The throng drew back
As though they let a spectre through. Then he,
Fronting the Count, and speaking in a voice
Sounding remote and hollow, made reply:

Then he bethought him, "Shall this wonder die, "Count, I shall paint the Countess. 'Tis my
And leave behind no shadow? not a trace
Of all the glory that environed her,

That mellow nimbus circling round my star?"
So, with his sorrow glooming in his face,
He paced along his gallery of art,
And strode among the painters, where they stood,
With Carlo, the Venetian, at their head,
Studying the Masters by the dawning light
Of his transcendent genius. Through the groups
Of gayly-vestured artists moved the Count,
As some lone cloud of thick and leaden hue,
Packed with the secret of a coming storm,
Moyes through the gold and crimson evening
mists,

Deadening their splendor. In a moment still
Was Carlo's voice, and still the prattling crowd;
And a great shadow overwhelmed them all,
As their white faces and their anxious eyes
Pursued Fernando in his moody walk.
He paused, as one who balances a doubt,
Weighing two courses, then burst out with this:
"Ye all have seen the tidings in my face;
Or has the dial ceased to register
The workings of my heart? Then hear the bell,
That almost cracks its frame in utterance;
The Countess, - she is dead!" 'Dead!"
Carlo groaned.

And if a bolt from middle heaven had struck His splendid features full upon the brow,

fate, Not pleasure,

no, nor duty." But the Count, Astray in woe, but understood assent, Not the strange words that bore it; and he flung His arm round Carlo, drew him to his breast, And kissed his forehead. At which Carlo shrank : Perhaps 't was at the honor. Then the Count, A little reddening at his public state, Unseemly to his near and recent loss, Withdrew in haste between the downcast eyes That did him reverence as he rustled by. Night fell on Padua. In the chapel lay The Countess Laura at the altar's foot. Her coronet glittered on her pallid brows; A crimson pall, weighed down with golden work, Sown thick with pearls, and heaped with early

flowers,

Draped her still body almost to the chin;
And over all a thousand candles flamed
Against the winking jewels, or streamed down
The marble aisle, and flashed along the guard
Of men-at-arms that slowly wove their turns,
Backward and forward, throughth distant gloom
When Carlo entered, his unsteady feet
Scarce bore him to the altar, and his head
Drooped down so low that all his shining curls
Poured on his breast, and veiled his countenance
Upon his easel a half-finished work,

He could not have appeared more scathed and The secret labor of his studio,

blanched.

Said from the canvas, so that none might err,

“Dead ! — dead!" He staggered to his easel-"I am the Countess Laura." Carlo kneeled,

frame,

And gazed upon the picture; as if thus,

Through those clear eyes, he saw the way to heaven. | Made eager struggles to maintain thy bloom,
Then he arose; and as a swimmer comes

Forth from the waves, he shook his locks aside,
Emerging from his dream, and standing firm
Upon a purpose with his sovereign will.
He took his palette, murmuring, "Not yet!"
Confidingly and softly to the corpse;
And as the veriest drudge, who plies his art
Against his fancy, he addressed himself
With stolid resolution to his task.
Turning his vision on his memory,

And shutting out the present, till the dead,
The gilded pall, the lights, the pacing guard,
And all the meaning of that solemn scene
Became as nothing, and creative Art
Resolved the whole to chaos, and reformed
The elements according to her law :

So Carlo wrought, as though his eye and hand
Were Heaven's unconscious instruments, and
worked

The settled purpose of Omnipotence.

And it was wondrous how the red, the white,
The ochre, and the umber, and the blue,
From mottled blotches, hazy and opaque,
Grew into rounded forms and sensuous lines;
How just beneath the lucid skin the blood
Glimmered with warmth; the scarlet lips apart
Bloomed with the moisture of the dews of life;
How the light glittered through and underneath
The golden tresses, and the deep, soft eyes
Became intelligent with conscious thought,
And somewhat troubled underneath the arch
Of eyebrows but a little too intense
For perfect beauty; how the pose and poise
Of the lithe figure on its tiny foot
Suggested life just ceased from motion; so
That any one might cry, in marvelling joy,
"That creature lives, - has senses, mind, a soul
To win God's love or dare hell's subtleties!"
The artist paused. The ratifying "Good!"
Trembled upon his lips. He saw no touch
To give or soften. "It is done," he cried, -
"My task, my duty! Nothing now on earth
Can taunt me with a work left unfulfilled !”
The lofty flame, which bore him up so long,
Died in the ashes of humanity;

And the mere man rocked to and fro again
Upon the centre of his wavering heart.
He put aside his palette, as if thus

He stepped from sacred vestments, and assumed
A mortal function in the common world.

And gladdened heaven dropped down in gracious

dews

On its transplanted darling? Hear me now!
I say this but in justice, not in pride,
Not to insult thy high nobility,

But that the poise of things in God's own sight
May be adjusted; and hereafter I

May urge a claim that all the powers of heaven
Shall sanction, and with clarions blow abroad. —
Laura, you loved me! Look not so severe,
With your cold brows, and deadly, close-drawn
lips!

You proved it, Countess, when you died for it, -
Let it consume you in the wearing strife
It fought with duty in your ravaged heart.
I knew it ever since that summer day

I painted Lila, the pale beggar's child,
At rest beside the fountain; when I felt -
O Heaven!- the warmth and moisture of your
breath

Blow through my hair, as with your eager soul-
Forgetting soul and body go as one
You leaned across my easel till our cheeks-
Ah me! 't was not your purpose — touched, and
clung!

Well, grant 't was genius; and is genius naught ?
I ween it wears as proud a diadem
Here, in this very world as that you wear.
A king has held my palette, a grand-duke
Has picked my brush up, and a pope has begged
The favor of my presence in his Rome.

I did not go; I put my fortune by.

I need not ask you why you knew too well.
It was but natural, it was no way strange,
That I should love you. Everything that saw,
Or had its other senses, loved you, sweet,
And I among them. Martyr, holy saint, -
I see the halo curving round your head,
I loved you once; but now I worship you,
For the great deed that held my love aloof,
And killed you in the action! I absolve
Your soul from any taint. For from the day
Of that encounter by the fountain-side
Until this moment, never turned on me
Those tender eyes, unless they did a wrong
To nature by the cold, defiant glare
With which they chilled me. Never heard I word
Of softness spoken by those gentle lips;
Never received a bounty from that hand
Which gave to all the world. I know the cause.

"Now for my rights!" he muttered, and ap- You did your duty, not for honor's sake,

proached

The noble body. "O lily of the world!
So withered, yet so lovely what wast thou
To those who came thus near thee-for I stood
Without the pale of thy half-royal rank

Nor to save sin or suffering or remorse,

Or all the ghosts that haunt a woman's shame,
But for the sake of that pure, loyal love
Your husband bore you. Queen, by grace of God,
I bow before the lustre of your throne!

When thou wast budding, and the streams of life I kiss the edges of your garment-hem,

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