To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. They all are belonging, dear baby, to thee. There are maidens in Scotland, more lovely by

Still in the water-lily's shade

Her wonted nest the wild swan made;
Ben-Cruaichan stands as fast as ever,

Still downward foams the Awe's fierce river:

To shun the clash of foeman's steel,
No Highland brogue has turn'd the heel;
But Nora's heart is lost and won,
She's wedded to the earlie's son!

Sotheby.

William Sotheby ward am 9. November 1757 in London geboren, erhielt seine Bildung auf der Schule zu Harrow und trat dann, siebenzehn Jahr alt in die Armee. 1780 nahm er seinen Abschied und kaufte sich ein Landgut Beirs Mount, in der Nähe von Southampton, wo er seinen Wohnsitz aufschlug. Im Jahre 1791 liess er sich in London nieder, wurde Mitglied mehrerer gelehrter Gesellschaften und bereiste 1816 Italien. Zurückgekehrt gab er in einer Reihe von Gedichten unter dem Titel Italy die Früchte dieser Reise heraus. Er starb am 30. December 1833 in seiner Vaterstadt.

Ausser vielen poetischen Uebersetzungen wie z. B. von Wieland's Oberon, Virgils Georgica, Homer's Ilias und Odyssee, hat Sotheby eine lange Reihe eigener Dichtungen hinterlassen, von denen wir hier nur Poems consisting of a Tour through parts of North and South Wales, London 1790 in 4.; The Battle of the Nile, London 1799 in 4.; The Siege of Cuzco, a Tragedy, London 1800 in 8; Julian a Tragedy, London 1801 in 8.; Oberon or Huon de Bordeaux, a mask; and Orestes, a Tragedy, London 1802; Saul, a poem, London 1807 in 4.; Constance de Castille, a poem, London 1810 in 4.; Six Tragedies, London 1814 in 8.; Italy, London 1819 in 8. u. s. w. anführen. Nur das letztere Werk, sowie seine Uebersetzungen haben sich im Angedenken erhalten. Er war nicht immer glücklich in der Wahl seiner Stoffe, wusste sie aber mit Feinheit und Eleganz zu behandeln, obwohl ihm wiederum Tiefe und Energie abgeht, am Gelungensten sind seine Schilderungen, in diesen finden sich einzelne durch Schönheit und Kraft ausgezeichnete Stellen, welche grössere Verbreitung verdienen als sie in des Dichters Vaterlande gefunden haben

Salvator.

Where stood Salvator, when with all his storms
Around him winter rav'd,

When being, none save man, the tempest brav'd?
When on her mountain crest

The eagle sank to rest,

Nor dar'd spread out her pennons to the blast:
Nor, till the whirlwind passed,

The famish'd wolf around the sheep-cote prowl'd?
Where stood Salvator, when the forest howl'd,
And the rock-rooted pine in all its length
Crash'd, prostrating its strength?

That cross'd like night a sky of crimson flame,
Stream'd ceaselessly the fire-bolts' forked aim:
While hurricanes, whose wings were frore with
hail,

Cut sheer the vines, and o'er the harvest vale
Spread barrenness? Where was Salvator found,
When all the air a bursting sea became,
Deluging earth? - On Terni's cliff he stood,
The tempest sweeping round.

I see him where the spirit of the storm
His daring votary led:

Firm stands his foot on the rock's topmost head,

That reels above the rushing and the roar

Of deep Vellino. In the glen below,

Where stood Salvator, when the summer cloud Again I view him on the reeling shore,

At noon-day, to Ausonia direr far

Than winter, and its elemental war,

Where the prone river, after length of course,
Collecting all its force,

Gather'd the tempest, from whose ebon shroud, An avalanche cataract, whirl'd in thunder o'er

The promontory's height,

Then might be seen by the presageful eye

Bursts on the rock: while round the mountain The vision of a rising realm unfold,

brow,

Half, half the flood rebounding in its might,
Spreads wide a sea of foam evanishing in light.

Rome.

I saw the ages backward roll'd,
The scenes long past restore:

Scenes that Evander bade his guest behold,
When first the Trojan stept on Tyber's shore
The shepherds in the forum pen their fold;
And the wild herdsman, on his untamed steed,
Goods with prone spear the heifer's foaming
speed,

Where Rome, in second infancy, once more
Sleeps in her cradle. But in that drear waste,
In that rude desert, when the wild goat sprung

From cliff to cliff, and the Tarpeian rock
Lour'd o'er the untended flock,

And eagles on its crest their aërie hung:

And temples roof'd with gold.

And in the gloom of that remorseless time,
When Rome the sabine seiz'd, might be foreseen

In the first triumph of successful crime,
The shadowy arm of one of giant birth

Forging a chain for earth:

And tho' slow ages roll'd their course between,
The form as of a Caesar, when he led
His war-worn legions on,

Troubling the pastoral stream of peaceful Ru-
bicon.

Such might o'er clay-built Rome have been
foretold
By word of human wisdom. But what word,
Save from thy lip, Jehovah's prophet! heard,
When Rome was marble, and her temples gold,
And the globe Caesar's footstool, who, when
Rome

View'd th' incommunicable name divine
Link a Faustina to an Antonine

On their polluted temple; who but thou,

The prophet of the Lord! what word, save thine,
Rome's utter desolation had denounc'd?

And when fierce gales bow'd the high pines, when Yet, ere that destin'd time,

The spirit of her blood,

As o'er them seen to breathe

With fond reverted neck she hung,

And lick'd in turn each babe, and formed with

fostering tongue :
And when the founder of imperial Rome
Fix'd on the robber hill, from earth aloof,
His predatory home,

And hung in triumph round his straw-thatched

Like mortal man's, are numbered: number'd all,
Ere each fleet hour decays.

Though pride yet haunt thy palaces, though art

The wolf skin, and huge boar tusks, and the Thy sculptur'd marbles animate:

Of branching antlers wide:

roof

pride

And tower'd in giant strength, and sent afar
His voice, that on the mountain echoes roll'd,
Stern preluding the war:

And when the shepherds left their peaceful fold,
And from the wild wood lair, and rocky den,
Round their bold chieftain rush'd strange forms
of barbarous men:

The Grotto of Egeria.

Can I forget that beauteous day,
When, shelter'd from the burning beam,
First in thy haunted grot I lay,
And loos'd my spirit to its dream,
Beneath the broken arch, o'erlaid
With ivy, dark with many a braid
That clasp'd its tendrils to retain

The stone its roots had writh'd in twain?
No zephyr on the leaflet play'd,

No bent grass bow'd its slender blade,
The coiled snake lay slumber-bound:
All mute, all motionless around,
Save, livelier, while others slept,
The lizard on the sunbeam leapt,

And louder while the groves were still,
The unseen cigali, sharp and shrill,
As if their chirp could charm alone
Tir'd noontide with its unison.

Stranger! that roam'st in solitude!
Thou, too, 'mid tangling bushes rude,
Seek in the glen, yon heights between,
A rill more pure than Hippocrene,
That from a sacred fountain fed
The stream that fill'd its marble bed.

Its marble bed long since is gone,
And the stray water struggles on,
Brawling thro' weeds and stones its way.
There, when o'erpower'd at blaze of day,
Nature languishes in light,

Pass within the gloom of night,
Where the cool grot's dark arch o'ershades
Thy temples, and the waving braids
Of many a fragrant brier that weaves
Its blossom thro' the ivy leaves.
Thou, too, beneath that rocky roof,
Where the moss mats its thickest woof,
Shalt hear the gather'd ice-drops fall
Regular, at interval,

Drop after drop, one after one,
Making music on the stone,
While every drop, in slow decay,
Wears the recumbent nymph away.
Thou, too, if ere thy youthful ear
Thrill'd the Latian lay to hear,
Lull'd to slumber in that cave,

Shalt hail the nymph that held the wave;
A goddess, who there deign'd to meet,

A mortal from Rome's regal seat,

And o'er the gushing of her fount,

Mysterious truths divine to earthly ear recount.

Keats.

John Keats ward am 29. October 1796 in London geboren, der Sohn eines Lohnkutschers. Er erhielt eine gute Erziehung und kam dann zu einem Chirurgen in die Lehre, bei dem er jedoch nicht lange blieb, da eine kleine Erbschaft ihm ein unabhängiges Leben sicherte. 1817 gab er seine Jugendgedichte und gleich darauf seinen "Endymion" heraus, fand aber an Gifford einen so erbitterten und gehässigen Recensenten im Quarterly Review, dass sein Leben mit tiefem Gram erfüllt wurde und die Anlage zur Auszehrung, die er schon lange in sich trug, sich rasch und zerstörend entwickelte. Um Heilung zu suchen ging er nach Italien, aber sie ward ihm nicht; er starb am 24. Februar 1821 in Rom.

Seine hinterlassenen Gedichte sind: Endymion, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, Hyperion und Miscellaneous Poems. Er besass ein reiches, schönes Talent, voll tiefer und zarter Empfindung, schöpferischer Phantasie und Gedankenfülle und würde sich bei längerem Leben und unter günstigeren Verhältnissen gewiss herrlich entwickelt haben.