Y THE LADY'S YES. ES!" I answer'd you last night; "No!" this morning, Sir, I say. Colours, seen by candle-light, When the tabors play'd their best, Call me false, or call me free- Yet the sin is on us both Time to dance is not to wooWooer light makes fickle trothScorn of me recoils on you! Learn to win a lady's faith Nobly, as the thing is high; Bravely, as for life and death— With a loyal gravity. Lead her from the festive boards, By your truth she shall be true- ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. SW A LAMENT. WIFTER far than summer's flight, Art thou come, art thou gone : The swallow Summer comes again, To fly with thee, false as thou. My heart each day desires the morrow, Lilies for a bridal bed, Roses for a matron's head, Pansies let my flowers be: On the living grave I bear Waste one hope, one fear for me. SHELLEY. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. NOME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged-'tis at a white heat now: COME The bellows ceased, the flames decreased-though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound, And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below, And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe: It rises, roars, rends all outright-O, Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright-the high sun shines not so! The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show; The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe. As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster, slow Sinks on the anvil-all about the faces fiery grow. "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out-leap out;" bang, bang the sledges go: Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow, The leathern mail rebounds the hail, the rattling cinders strow The ground around: at every bound the sweltering fountains flow, And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant "ho!" Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor-a bower thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode, And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road The low reef roaring on her lee-the roll of ocean pour'd From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains! But courage still, brave mariners-the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though he said, “ Fear nothing-here am I." Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime. But, while you sling your sledges, sing-and let the burthen be, The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in-the sparks begin to dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped. Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here, For the yeo-heave-o', and the heave-away, and the sighing seaman's cheer; When, weighing slow, at eve they go-far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam. In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last; A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast. O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!` O deep Sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? The hoary-monster's palaces! methinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churn'd sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! |