I 2

When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me ?—And I replied,
No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

POURQUOI la lumière est-elle donnée au malheureux,
Et la vie à ceux dont l'âme est pleine d'amertume,
Qui attendent la mort, sans que la mort vienne,
Qui la cherchent plus ardemment qu'un trésor,
Qui sont heureux jusqu'à en tressaillir,

Et se réjouissent, quand ils ont trouvé le tombeau;
A l'homme dont la route est couverte de ténèbres,
Et
que Dieu a entouré d'un cercle fatal?

Adversity

Mes soupirs sont devenus comme mon pain,
Et mes gémissements se répandent comme l'eau ;
A peine conçois-je une crainte qu'elle se réalise ;
Tous les malheurs que je redoute fondent sur moi.
Plus de sécurité, plus de repos, plus de paix !
Sans cesse de nouveaux tourments!

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K. Henry VI at the battle of Wakefield.

THIS battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light;
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways
it this way, like a mighty sea,
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind:
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind.

Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best:
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd:
So is the equal poise of this fell war.

Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory!
For Margaret my queen and Clifford too
Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.

Would I were dead!—if God's good will were so;
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain:
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes, how they run:

Failure

How many make the hour full complete,
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.—
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;

So

many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate; many hours must I sport myself;

So

many

weeks ere the

poor

So many days my ewes have been with young;
So
fools will yean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days,-months and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah! what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy

To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?
yes
it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude,—the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates,

His viands sparkling in a golden cup,.

His body couchèd in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.

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Observe, however, that of man's whole terrestrial possessions and attainments, unspeakably the noblest are

Lost Ideals

his Symbols, divine or divine-seeming; under which he marches and fights, with victorious assurance, in this lifebattle: what we can call his Realised Ideals. Of which realised Ideals, omitting the rest, consider only these two: his Church, or spiritual Guidance; his Kingship, or temporal one. The Church: what a word was there; richer than Golconda and the treasures of the world! In the heart of the remotest mountains rises the little Kirk; the Dead all slumbering round it, under their white memorial-stones, 'in hope of a happy resurrection': Dull wert thou, . . if never in any hour. . it spoke to thee things unspeakable, that went to thy soul's soul. Strong was he that had a Church,—what we can call a Church he stood thereby, though in the center of Immensities in the conflux of Eternities', yet manlike towards God and man; the vague shoreless Universe had become a firm city for him, a dwelling which he knew. Such virtue was in Belief; in these words well spoken: I believe. Well might men prize their Credo, and raise stateliest Temples for it, and reverend Hierarchies, and give it the tithe of their substance; it was worth living for and dying for

But of those decadent ages in which no Ideal either grows or blossoms? when Belief and Loyalty have passed away, and only the cant and false echo of them remains ; and all Solemnity has become Pageantry; and the Creed of persons in authority, an Imbecility or a Machiavelism? Alas, of these ages World-history can take no notice; they have to be compressed more and more, and finally suppressed in the Annals of Mankind; blotted out as spurious,-which indeed they are. Hapless ages: wherein, if ever in any, it is an

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unhappiness to be born. To be born, and to learn only,
by every tradition and example, that God's Universe is
Belial's and a Lie; and the Supreme Quack' the
hierarch of men! In which mournfullest faith, never-
theless, do we not see whole generations
they call living; and vanish? .

live, what

VANITY of Vanities, saith the Preacher,
Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity.

What profit hath a man of all his labour
wherein he laboureth under the sun?
Generation passeth away, and generation cometh,
and the earth abideth for ever.

The sun ariseth and the sun goeth down,
and hasteth to the place where he ariseth.
The wind goeth toward the south,

and turneth round unto the north;
Around and around goeth the wind,
and on its rounds the wind returneth.

All the rivers run into the sea,

yet the sea is not full;

Unto the place whence the rivers come,
thither they return again.

All things are full of weariness;

man cannot utter it.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing,

nor the ear filled with hearing.

The thing that hath been is that which shall be,

and that which is done is that which shall be done :

and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath already been in the ages that were before us.