Thought she as well of smiles, her lips | The wounded with the dead are gone; would pout With a perpetual simper. Walsingham Hath praised these crying beauties of the north, So whimpering is the fashion. How I hate The dim dull yellow of that Scottish hair! Master of Revels. Hush! hush!-is that the sound of wheels I hear? [The Dead-cart passes by, driven by a Negro. Ha! dost thou faint, Louisa! one had thought That railing tongue bespoke a mannish heart. But so it ever is. The violent Are weaker than the mild, and abject fear Dwells in the heart of passion. Mary Gray, Throw water on her face. She now revives. Mary Gray. O sister of my sorrow and my shame! Lean on my bosom. Sick must be your heart With sable visage and white-glaring eyes, An unknown language of most dreadful sounds. What matters it? I see it was a dream. Young Man. Come, brighten up, Where we may hold our orgies undisturb'd, You know those rumbling wheels are privileged, And we must bide the nuisance. Walsingham, To put an end to bickering, and these fits Of fainting that proceed from female vapours, a free and gladsome Give us a song; song; None of those Scottish ditties framed of sighs, Upon the Plague. I made the words last night. After we parted: a strange rhyming-fit Won't mend the matter much. Many voices. A song on the Plague! A song on the Plague! Let's have it! bravo! bravo! SONG. Two navies meet upon the waves But Ocean drowns each frantic groan, CHORUS. I sing the praises of the Pest! me thou wouldst this night destroy, Come, smite me in the arms of Joy. Two armies meet upon the hill; Thy regal robes become thee well. Thou! Spirit of the burning breath, Ha! blundering Palsy! thou art chill! To thee, O Plague! I pour my song, O'er the grave where her old dotard sleeps, ACT II. SCENE II. HYMN. THE air of death breathes through our souls, By day and night the death-bell tolls The face that in the morning-sun I see the old man in his grave I see the child's bright tresses wave The loving ones we loved the best, But not when the death-prayer is said, At holy midnight voices sweet We know who sends the visions bright, This frame of dust, this feeble breath, Dim is the light of vanish'd years Like children for some bauble fair ACT II. SCENE III. -Before the Plague burst out, All who had eye-sight witness'd in the city Dread Apparitions, that sent through the soul Forebodings of some wild calamity. The very day-light seem'd not to be pour'd Down from the sun-a ghastly glimmering haze Sent upwards from the earth; while every face Look'd wan and sallow, gliding through the streets That echoed in the darkness. When the veil Of mist was drawn aside, there hung the sun In the unrejoicing atmosphere, blood-red, And beamless in his wrath. At morn and even, And through the dismal day, that fierce aspect Glared on the city, and many a wondering group Gazed till they scarce believed it was the sun. Did any here behold, as I beheld, That phantom who three several nights appear'd, Sitting upon a cloud-built throne of state Right o'er St. Paul's Cathedral? On that throne At the dead hour of night he took his seat, And monarch-like stretch'd out his mighty And, unobservant of each other, gliding Down a dark flight of steps that seem'd to lead Into the bosom of eternity? I have seen hearses moving through the sky! Then rose a direful struggle with the Pest! Looking in perturbation through the glare streets War-music, and the soldiers' tossing plumes Moved with their wonted pride. O idle show Of these worthless instruments of death, Themselves devoted! Childish mockery! poor Yet bearing onwards through the hurricane, ling stars Look'd through the blue and empty firma ment! And I have seen A mighty church-yard spread its dreary realms O'er half the visible heavens yard blacken'd a church night The trumpet silenced and the plumes laid low. As yet the Sabbath-day-though truly fear Rather than piety fill'd the house of GodReceived an outward homage. On the street Friends yet met friends, and dared to inter change A cautious greeting and firesides there were With ceaseless funerals that besieged the Mid an unbroken family; while the soul, gates With lamentation and a wailing echo. Nor dared again to sleep. ACT III. SCENE I. Priest. Like a thunder-peal One morn a rumour turn'd the city pale; And the tongues of men, wild-staring on each other, Utter'd with faltering voice one little word, The Plague! Then many heard within their dreams At dead of night a voice foreboding woe, A voire came down that made itself be heard, And they started from delusion when the touch Of Death's benumbing fingers suddenly Swept off whole crowded streets into the grave. In endless schemes to overcome the Plague, In art, skill, zeal, in ruth and charity Forgot its horrors, and oft seem'd to rise But soon the noblest spirits disappear'd, More life-like 'mid the ravages of death. None could tell whither-and the city stood Like a beleaguer'd fortress, that hath lost, The flower of its defenders. Then the Plague Storm'd, raging like a barbarous conqueror, And, hopeless to find mercy, every one Fell on his face, and all who rose again Crouch'd to the earth in suppliant agony. Wilmot. Father! how mournful every Sabbath-day To miss some well-known faces! to behold The congregation weekly thinn'd by death, And empty scats with all their Bibles lying Cover'd with dust. Priest. Ay-even the house of God Was open to the Plague. Amid their prayers The kneelers sicken'd, and most deadly-pale Rose up with sobs, and beatings of the heart And the soul looks o'er ocean, earth, and air, Heedless to whom its fields or waves belong, So that there were some overshadowing grove Central amid a mighty continent, Wilmot. He loves the silence Priest. Once at noon-day Alone I stood upon a tower that rises From the centre of the city. I look'd down With awe upon that world of misery; Nor for a while could say that I beheld Aught save one wide gleam indistinctly flung From that bewildering grandeur; till at once The objects all assumed their natural form, And grew into a City stretching round On every side, far as the bounding sky. Mine eyes first rested on the squares that lay Without one moving figure, with fair trees Lifting their tufted heads unto the light, Sweet, sunny spots of rural imagery That gave a beauty to magnificence. Silent as nature's solitary glens Slept the long streets-and mighty London seem'd, With all its temples, domes, and palaces, Like some sublime assemblage of tall cliffs That bring down the deep st llness of the heavens To shroud them in the desert. Groves of masts Rose through the brightness of the sunsmote river, But all their flags were struck, and every sail Was lower'd. Many a distant land had felt Of this world's business once roar'd like the sea, That sound within my memory strove in vain, Yet with a mighty power, to break the silence That like the shadow of a troubled sky Or moveless cloud of thunder lay beneath me, The breathless calm of universal death. Must have died in beauty and in innocence Priest. Many sweet flowers died! Pure innocents! they mostly sank in peace. Yet sometimes it was misery to hear them | Praying their parents to shut out the Plague; Nor could they sleep alone within their beds, In fear of that dread monster. Childhood lost Its bounding gladsomeness its fearless glee And infants of five summers walk'd about With restless eyes, or by their parents' sides Crouch'd shuddering, for they ever heard them speaking Of death, or saw them weeping - no one smiled. Wilmot. Hath not the summer been most beautiful, 'Mid all this misery? Priest. A sunny season! What splendid days, what nights magnificent Yea! in the sore disturbance of men's souls squares, Bright with the dews of morning, they seen'd blest! On them alone th' untainted air of heaven Cut off from human intercourse—or haunted SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. SYBILLINE LEAVES. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT The ship was cheer'd, the harbour clear'd, MARINER. IN SEVEN PARTS. Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, The Sun came up upon the left, Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles And he shone bright, and on the right guamus. I. It is an ancient Mariner, By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide, The guests are met, the feast is set: He holds him with his skinny hand, He holds him with his glittering eye- The wedding-guest sat on a stone: And thus spake on that ancient man, The wedding-guest here beat his breast, The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she; The wedding-guest he beat his breast, And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he With sloping masts and dipping prow, The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast, And now there came both mist and snow, And through the drifts the snowy clift Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken- |