When Sleep had bound her in his rosy band, II. The form, the form alone is eloquent! My fancy made me for a moment blest She still would take the praise, and care more. III. Wan Sculptor, weepest thou to take the cast In painting some dead friend from memory? But breathe it into earth and close it up Which some green Christmas crams with weary bones. ON A MOURNER. NATURE, so far as in her lies, Imitates God, and turns her face Counts nothing that she meets with base, 2. Fills out the homely quick-set screens, The swamp, where hums the dropping snipe, 3. And on thy heart a finger lays, 4. And murmurs of a deeper voice, 5. And when the zoning eve has died 6. And when no mortal motion jars The blackness round the tombing sod, Thro' silence and the trembling stars Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod, And Virtue, like a household god 7. Promising empire; such as those That once at dead of night did greet SONG. LADY, let the rolling drums Beat to battle where thy warrior stands: Now thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands. Lady, let the trumpets blow, Clasp the little babes about thy knee: Now their warrior father meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and thee. SONG. HOME they brought him slain with spears. They brought him home at even-fall: All alone she sits and hears Echoes in his empty hall, Sounding on the morrow. The Sun peep'd in from open field, Beat upon his father's shield "O hush, my joy, my sorrow.” EXPERIMENTS. BOÄDICE A. WHILE about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, Far in the East Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted, Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Cámulodúne, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy. 'They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces, Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating? Shall I heed them in their anguish ? shall I brook to be supplicated? Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us? Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering? |