WAGES. GLORY of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea- Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory she: The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? THE HIGHER PANTHEISM. THE sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains- Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems ? Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet- God is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool; For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool; I. THE VOICE AND THE PEAK. THE Voice and the Peak Far over summit and lawn, JI. All night have I heard the voice But thou wert silent in heaven, EXPERIMENTS. BOÄDICEA. WHILE about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, '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? Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable, Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton, Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated. Lo their colony half-defended! low their colony, Cámulodúne ! There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cássivëlaún ! "Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian ! Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred, Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men; Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering There was one who watch'd and told me down their statue of Victory fell. Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful? "Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating, There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony, Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses, 'Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets! Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee, Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet! Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated, "Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant! Me the wife of rich Prasútagus, me the lover of liberty, Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated, There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd. There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay, Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy. There they dwelt and there they rioted; there-there- they dwell no more. Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, So the Queen Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted, Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineäments, IN QUANTITY. ON TRANSLATIONS OF HOMER. Hexameters and Pentameters. THESE lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer! When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England? Should I flounder awhile without a tumble Thro' this metrification of Catullus, They should speak to me not without a welcome, All that chorus of indolent reviewers. Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, So fantastical is the dainty metre. Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers, O blatant Magazines, regard me rather Since I blush to belaud myself a moment As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost Horticultural art, or half coquette-like Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly. SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE. So Hector spake; the Trojans roar'd applause; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep |