Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight,

While tears were thy best pastime, day and night;

"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 counsel 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;

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.

"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.

"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.

The invisible world with thee hath sympathised:
Be thy affections raised and solemnised.

"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.”-

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes re-appears! Round the dear Shade she would have clung'tis vain :

The hours are past-too brief, had they been years

And him no mortal effort can detain :

Swift, towards 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.

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.1

1 It is interesting to trace the changes of thought which consigned Laodamía in turn to the Paradiso, Inferno, and

-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!
W. WORDSWORTH

11. THE SCHOOLMASTERS

(SUPPOSED TO BE RELATED BY A MANXMAN)

WHAT'S he sayin? God bless the falla!
Love is love even in a sheep-

There's some that takes it middlin shalla ;
But there's some that takes it very deep.

Purgatorio of classical mythology.

have, instead of the above stanza

In the first edition we

Ah! judge her gently who so deeply loved;
Her who, in reason's spite, yet without crime,
Was in a trance of passion thus removed;
Delivered from the galling yoke of time
And these frail elements, to gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers."

In a later edition we find her condemned to "a grosser clime," with no expressed hope of remission; and finally, to the temporary exile of the text. See Contemporary Review, Nov. 1878. Text of Wordsworth's Poems.

You mind me tellin of Jemmy Jem,

And the son and the daughter, him and them
Up at the Church agate of1 the carols—
66 Shepherds watchin," "Hark the harals!"
That night the Christmas come ashore?

Three schools in the parish

Them times, I remember, and putty fairish

For the lek, I think. There was one at the

Church,

And the little Lhen wasn' left in the lurch

A school there, and one at the Sandy,

Up the gill, that was terbil handy

For the Jurby people; besides the school

In the town, where none of us went as a rule.

Now the school at the Church was countin the

head

Of the three. And Clukish, bedad,

Was a splandid masther-lek 2 Jemmy Jem
For shortness, but Clukish all the same-
James Clukish; and sarvin for clerk

As well as schoolmaster. And Mark

Was the name of the son, called Marky the Bird ;
And the daughter, Maggie: they hadn' a third.

But the school at the Lhen was just for childhar,
Enfans in perricuts: Danny Bewildhar
Was the name of the Masther, callin him out
Of his proper name, that was Danny the Spout;
At laste-I don't know; but Skillicorn,

I've heard them sayin, the man was born.

1 Engaged in.

2 Lek (like) is often explanatory: "that is to say," "so to speak," etc.

Poor ould Dan-aw, bless your sowl!—
Now, was it Skillicorn or Cowle?

*

*

*

*

Well, me and Maggie, I'll engage,
Was just about the same age;

And Mark, of coorse, would be younger rather;
And the two of them goin to school to the father:
But me to the little school at the Lhen,

With Danny Bewildhar—poor ould Dan !
The like of a school like that you never---
Aw! Danny thought he was taechin clever ;
But letters? no! The A B C?

And spells, and that? All fiddlededee !
"Latthars!" he'd say; "idikkiliss!
Just clap a Testament in their fiss,

And off they go-aw, bless your heart!
They'll read soon enough, if ye give them a start.
Latthars latthars! bewild'rin the childhar".
And so they were callin him Danny Bewildhar.

Poor Dan! “A start,” he said; "only a start !”
But, of coorse, we were gettin it off by heart.
That was Dan. So we wasn' goin

To the same school; but still I was knowin
The two very well. They were just a taste
Shuperior lek, the way they were dressed-
Shoes and stockins-and me-aw, chut!
Never had such a thing on my fut

Except on Sunday.

But meetin them down On the shore very often, or up on a ground We were callin the Lhergy, covered with goss And flowers. And aw the nice it was