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"Ah, wherefore?-Did not Hercules by force Wrest from the guardian Monster of the tomb Alcestis, a reanimated corse,

Given back to dwell on earth in vernal bloom? Medea's spells dispersed the weight of years, And Æson stood a youth 'mid youthful peers. 84

"The Gods to us are merciful-and they
Yet further may relent: for mightier far
Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,

Is love, though oft to agony distrest,

And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.

"But if thou goest, I follow-"

said;

"Peace!" he

She looked upon him and was calmed and

cheered;

The ghastly color from his lips had fled;
In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,

90

Brought from a pensive though a happy place. 96

He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel
In worlds whose course is equable and pure;
No fears to beat away-no strife to heal-
The past unsighed for, and the future sure;
Spake of heroic arts in graver mood
Revived, with finer harmony pursued;

102

Of all that is most beauteous-imaged there
In happier beauty; more pellucid streams,
An ampler ether, a diviner air,

And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day

Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.

Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned

108

That privilege by virtue.-" Ill," said he, "The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, While tears were thy best pastime, day and night;

114

"And while my youthful peers before my eyes (Each hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports,-or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council, were detained: What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

"The wished-for wind was given:-I then revolved

The oracle, upon the silent sea;

120

And, if no worthier led the way, resolved That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,— Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan

sand.

126

"Yet bitter, oft-times bitter was the pang When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife! On thee too fondly did my memory hang, And on the joys we shared in mortal life,The paths which we had trod-these fountains, flowers,

My new-planned cities, and unfinished

towers.

132

66

'But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, 'Behold they tremble!-haughty their array, Yet of their number no one dares to die?' In soul I swept the indignity away: Old frailties then recurred:- but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

"And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak

In reason, in self-government too slow;

I counsel thee by fortitude to seek
Our blest reunion in the shades below.

138

The invisible world with thee hath sympathized; Be thy affections raised and solemnized.

1 144

“Learn by a mortal yearning, to ascend--
Seeking a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;
For this the passion to excess was driven-
That self might be annulled: her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."-

---

150

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears! Round the dear Shade she would have clung't is vain:

The hours are past-too brief had they been

years;

And him no mortal effort can detain:

Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly

day,

He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse she

lay.

157

Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved,
She perished; and, as for a wilful crime,
By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved,
Was doomed to wear out her appointed time,
Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.
163

-Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes.—Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight:
A constant interchange of growth and

blight!

1815.

William Wordsworth.

174

KILMENY

From The Queen's Wake

BONNY Kilmeny gaed up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira's men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
It was only to hear the yorlin sing,

And pu' the cress-flower round the spring,-
The scarlet hypp, and the hindberrye,
And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree;
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But lang may her minny look o'er the wa',
And lang may she seek i' the green-wood shaw:
Lang the laird of Duneira blame,

And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame. 13

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When many a day had come and fled, When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, When mass for Kilmeny's soul had been sung, When the bedesman had prayed, and the dead

bell rung;

}

Late, late in a gloamin, when all was still,
When the fringe was red on the westlin hill,
The wood was sere, the moon i' the wane,
The reek o' the cot hung over the plain,—
Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;
When the ingle lowed with an eiry leme,
Late, late in the gloamin Kilmeny came hame! 24

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