Where wert thou, brother, those four days?"
There lives no record of reply,
Which, telling what it is to die,
Had surely added praise to praise.
From every house the neighbours met;
The streets were fill'd with joyful sound;
A solemn gladness even crowned
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ'
The rest remaineth unrevealed;
He told it not; or something sealed
The lips of that Evangelist.
197. SUICIDE.
[From HAMLET.]
TO be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die-to sleepNo more; and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die—to sleep;
To sleep!-perchance to dream!-ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of outrag'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
То groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
(That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
198. A POET'S CHILDHOOD.
[From THE MINSTREL.]
AND yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy:
Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye: Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude nor toy, Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy; Silent when glad; affectionate, though shy;
And now his look was most demurely sad,
And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why: The neighbours stared and sighed, yet bless'd the
Some deem'd him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.
But why should I his childish feats display?
Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled;
Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray
Of squabbling imps; but to the forest sped,
Or roam'd at large the lonely mountain's head,
Or where the maze of some bewilder'd stream
To deep untrodden groves his footsteps led,
There would he wander wild, till Phoebus' beam,
Shot from the western cliff, released the weary team.
Th' exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed,
To him nor vanity nor joy could bring:
His heart, from cruel sport estranged, would bleed
To work the woe of any living thing,
By trap or net, by arrow or by sling;
These he detested; those he scorned to wield :
He wish'd to be the guardian, not the king,
Tyrant far less, or traitor of the field,
And sure the sylvan reign unbloody joy might yield.
Lo! where the stripling, rapt in wonder, roves
Beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine;
And sees, on high, amidst the encircling groves,
From cliff to cliff the foaming torrents shine;
While waters, woods, and winds, in concert join,
And echo swells the chorus to the skies!
Would Edwin this majestic scene resign
For aught the huntsman's puny craft supplies? Ah, no! he better knows great Nature's charms to prize.
And oft he traced the uplands, to survey,
When o'er the sky advanced the kindling dawn,
The crimson cloud, blue main, and mountain gray,
And lake, dim-gleaming on the smoky lawn,
And, towards the west, the long, long vale with-
drawn,
Where twilight loves to linger for a while:
And now he faintly kens the bounding fawn,
And villager abroad at early toil:
And lo! the sun appears! and heaven, earth, ocean, smile!
And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb,
When all in mist the world below was lost-
What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwrecked mariner on desert coast,
And view the enormous waste of vapour, tost
In billows, lengthening to the horizon round,
Now scooped in gulfs, with mountains now
embossed!
And hear the voice of mirth and song rebound,
Flocks, herds, and waterfalls, along the hoar profound!
In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,
Fond of each gentle and each dreadful scene:
In darkness and in storm he found delight,
Not less that when on ocean-wave serene
The southern sun diffused his dazzling shene;
E'en sad vicissitude amused his soul:
And if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
A sigh, a tear so sweet, he wished not to control.
199. THE BEAUTY OF NOURMAHAL.
HERE'S a beauty for ever unchangingly bright, Like the long, sunny lapse of a sunimer-day's
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,
Till love falls asleep in its sameness of splendour!
This was not the beauty,-oh, nothing like this,
That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss:
But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays
Like the light upon autumn's soft shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies
From the lip to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes!
When pensive, it seem'd as if that very grace,
That charm of all others, was born with her face:
And when angry,- for ev'n in the tranquillest climes
Light breezes will ruffle the blossoms sometimes-
The short, passing anger but seem'd to awaken
New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when
shaken!
Then her mirth-oh! 'twas sportive as ever took
From the heart with a burst, like the wild-bird in spring;
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