Tell how, defying foes, disease, and the fierce blasting sun, He thundered on, through armies crushed, each day a battle won,

Swept, conquering, on-resistless, on-through all that barred his way,

To where the hosts of howling fiends in Lucknow girt their prey,

Then, through the storm of fire, at last fought on to Inglis' side,

And, when thy children all were saved, blessed God and thee, and died.

How many a greatness, all thine own, not yet has crossed my tongue

That might by glory's own bright lips and thine be fitlier

sung,

The sunrise of thy deathless verse that made its morning

bright,

Thy Chaucer, whose clear radiance first brake sweetly up the night,

Thy Massinger, Green, Decker, Peele, and Marlowe-all who lit,

With Fletcher, honey-tongued-and Ford, the Mermaid bright with wit,

Thy Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, Marvel, and their

crew,

Thy nightingales, whose sweetness well their mightier fellows knew,

And he, thy Dante, who on earth lived for and still with God,

Milton, who here the fields of heaven and hell's red darkness trod,

To whom, with the dread Florentine, 'twas given in life alone Alike to see the torturing flames and gaze upon The Throne;

These flash down on us, shining ones that lustrous make thy past,

Nor others dost thou seek in vain, whose light as long shall last ;

See, Christian, through the flood, to the Celestial Gate has

striven,

That "tale divine," to our rapt ears, was by thy Bunyan

given ;

Those laughs of ringing centuries tell of humour strangely true,

"Tis his-thy Butler's-who, for us the canting crop-ears drew;

Ah! Crusoe's lonely island life of years, how well we know ! That fiction's moving truth of truth, won life from thy Defoe; Thine, too, were Goldsmith's tender thought, and humour dear and whim,

Thine he who gentlest Toby drew, and the kind heart of Trim;

Thine Richardson and Smollett, Steele and Fielding, fellows

fit;

Thine Vanbrugh's, Farquhar's dazzling scenes, and Congreve's diamond wit,

Thine was the hand and the fine brain whose quaint and gentle powers,

How tenderly and rarely well, made his "Sir Roger" ours; Thine Dryden's strong resounding lines, and Pope's point, bright and keen;

Thine Swift's fierce heart, that madness made so savage, sore, and mean;

Thine Young's drear thoughts, and Thompson's verse that rhymes the year away,

And Ramsay's bonnie lassies' chat, and the dear lines of Gay;

Thy Cowper's quiet feeling yet our grateful reverence earns; Still, on our tongues and in our blood, dance on the songs

of Burns;

Nor later songs and nearer names by thee shall be forgot, Thy great in verse, and mightier far in prose, thy Wizard, Scott.

*

139

ARIADNE.

MORN rose on Naxos,-golden, dewy morn,
Climbing its eastern cliffs with gleaming light,
Purpling each inland peak and dusky gorge
Of the grey distance,—morn, on lowland slopes
Of olive-ground, and vines, and yellowing corn,
Orchard, and flowery pasture, white with kine,
On forest,-hill-side cot, and rounding sea,
And the still tent of Theseus by the shore.

Morn rose on Naxos-chill and freshening morn,
And scarce the unbreathing air a twitter heard
From eave or bough,—nor yet a blue smoke rose
From glade, or misty vale, or far-off town;
One only sign of life, a dusky sail,
Stole dark afar across the distant sea,
Flying; all else unmoved in stillness lay
Beneath the silence of the brightening heavens,
Nor sound was heard to break the slumbrous calm,
Save the soft lapse of waves along the strand.

A white form from the tent,—a glance,—a cry.

"Where art thou, Theseus ?—Theseus! Theseus! where? Why hast thou stolen thus with earliest dawn

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"Forth from thy couch-forth from these faithless arms "That even in slumber should have clasp'd thee still! "Truant! ah me! and hast thou learnt to fly "So early from thy Ariadne's love?

"Where art thou? Is it well to fright me thus-
"To scare me for a moment with the dread

"Of one abandon'd! Art thou in the woods
"With all that could have told me where thou art !
"Cruel! and couldst thou not have left me one,
"Ere this to have laughed away my idle fears!

"He could have told thee all the start-the shriek-
"The pallid face with which I found thee gone,
"And furnish'd laughter for thy glad return;
"But thus! to leave me, cruel! thus, alone!

"There is no sound of horns among the hills,
"No shouts that tell they track or bay the boar.
"O fearful stillness! O that one would speak!
"O would that I were fronting wolf or pard
"But by thy side this moment! so strange fear
"Possesses me, O love! apart from thee!

"The galley? gone? Ye Gods! it is not gone?
"Here, by this rock it lay but yesternight!

"Gone? through this track its keel slid down the shore; "And I slept calmly as it cleft the sea?

"Gone? gone? where gone?-that sail! 'tis his! 'tis his!

Return, O Theseus! Theseus! love! return!

"Thou wilt return? thou dost but try my love?

"Thou wilt return to make my foolish fears

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Thy jest? Return, and I will laugh with thee!

"Return! return! and canst thou hear my shrieks,

"Nor heed my cry! And wouldst thou have me weep? Weep! I that wept, white with wild fear, the while

"Thou slew'st the abhorred monster! If it be

"Thou takest pleasure in these bitter tears, "Come back, and I will weep myself away, "A streaming Niobe, to win thy smiles! "O stony heart! why wilt thou wring me thus? "O heart more cold unto my shrilling cries "Than these wild hills that wail to thee, return! "Than all these island rocks that shriek, return! "Come back! Thou seest me rend this blinding hair; "Hast thou not sworn, each tress thou didst so prize, "That sight of home, and thy grey father's face, "Were less a joy to thee, and lightlier held? 66 Thy sail thy sail! O do my watery eyes "Take part with thee, so loved! to crush me down! "Gone! gone! and wilt thou-wilt thou not return? "Heartless, unfearing the just Gods, wilt thou, "Theseus my lord! my love! desert me thus ? "Thus leave me, stranger in this strange wild land, Friendless, afar from all I left for thee,

"Crete, my old home, and my ancestral halls,

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My father's love, and the remember'd haunts

“Of childhood,—all that knew me,—all I knew,—

"All-all-woe! woe! that I shall know no more.
"Why didst thou lure me, craftiest, from my home?
"There, if, thy love grown cold, thou thus hadst fled,
"I had found comfort in fond words and smiles
"Familiar, and the pity of my kin,

"Tears wept with mine,-tears wept by loving eyes,
“That had washed out thy traces from my heart,
"Perchance, in years, had given me back to joy.
"O that thy steps had never trodden Crete!
"O that these eyes had never on thee fed!
"O that, weak heart! I ne'er had look'd my love,
"Or, looking, thou hadst thrust it back with hate!
"Did I not save thee? I? Was it for this,

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Despite Crete's hate-despite my father's wrath, "Perchance to slay me, that I ventured all "For thee for thee-forgetting all for thee! "Thou know'st it all; who knows it if not thou, "Save the just Gods-the Gods who hear my cry, "And mutter vengeance o'er thy flying head, "Forsworn! And, lo! on thy accursed track "Rush the dread furies; lo! afar I see "The hoary Ægeus, watching for his son,

"His son that nears him still with hastening oars, Unknown,—that nears him but to dash him down, "Moaning, to darkness and the dreadful shades,

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The while thy grief wails after him in vain ; "And, lo, again the good Gods glad my sight

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66

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With vengeance; blood again, thy blood, I see
Streaming; who bids Hippolytus depart

But thou—thou, sword of lustful Phædra's hate "Against thy boy-thy son-thy fair-hair'd boy? "I see the ivory chariot whirl him on—

"The madden'd horses down the rocky way

Dashing-the roaring monster in their path;

"And plates and ivory splinters of the car,

"And blood and limbs, sprung from thee, erushed and torn, "Poseidon scatters down the shrieking shores;

“And thou, too late-too late, bewail'st in vain,

"Thy blindness and thy hapless darling's fate,

And think'st of me, abandoned, and my woe;