A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be;
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free:

Although a subtler Sphinx renew

Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

24

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give,

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?

30

36

1822.

Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn

Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,

Oh, might it die or rest at last!

42

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

"HARP OF THE NORTH, FAREWELL!"

HARP of the North, farewell! The hills grow

dark,

On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending. Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending,

With distant echo from the fold and lea, And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing

bee.

Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, And little reck I of the censure sharp

May idly cavil at an idle lay.

Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, Through secret woes the world has never

9

known,

When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone.= That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine

own.

Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string! 'T is now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 'T is now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. Receding now, the dying numbers ring

18

Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring A wandering witch-note of the distant spellAnd now, 't is silent all!-Enchantress, fare thee

well!

1810.

Sir Walter Scott.

27

TO THE MUSES

WHETHER on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the Sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceased;

Whether in heaven ye wander fair,

Or the green corners of the earth,

Or the blue regions of the air

Where the melodious winds have birth;

J

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,

Beneath the bosom of the sea,

8

1783.

Wandering in many a coral grove;
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

12

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move,
The sound is forced, the notes are few. 16
William Blake.

"THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS"

THE harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,

Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,

As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days,

So glory's thrill is o'er,

And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;

The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.

Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives,

Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.

8

16

1807.

Thomas Moore.

THE LOST LEADER

JUST for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat-
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allow'd;
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags-were they purple, his heart had been
proud!

We that had lov'd him so, follow'd him, honor'd him,

Liv'd in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learn'd his great language, caught his clear

accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, -He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! 16

We shall march prospering,-not thro' his

presence;

Songs may inspirit us,-not from his lyre;