LIBERTY. YE clouds! that far above me float and pause, Ye woods! that listen to the night-bird's singing, Through glooms which never woodman trod, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! ye loud waves! and O ye forests high! And O ye clouds that far above me soar'd! Thou rising sun! thou blue rejoicing sky! Yea, everything that is, and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er you be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty. Coleridge. THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN. ALL the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: And then, the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, SOLITUDE. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all the flatter'd, followed, sought, and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude! Byron. THE HISTORY OF A LIFE. DAY dawned-Within a curtained room, A lady lay at point of doom. Day closed:-A child had seen the light; But for the lady, fair and bright, She rested in undreaming night. BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. Spring rose-The lady's grave was green; A gentle boy, with thoughtful mien. Years fled :-He wore a manly face, And then he died! Behold, before ye, 267 Procter. THE LAY OF THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. I. Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note! The knights will ride, in all their pride, Shall have such honour still. But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, 268 BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 11. Unto the Great Twin Brethren O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, From where with flutes and dances Their ancient mansion rings, In lordly Lacedæmon, The city of two kings, III. Now on the place of slaughter Are cots and sheep-folds seen, That fall from Corne's oaks. The reaper's pottage smokes. The fisher baits his angle; The hunter twangs his bow: That moulder deep below: That day the trumpets pealed; How in the slippery swamp of blood BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. How wolves came with fierce gallop And peck the eyes of kings: Bubbled with crimson foam, What time the thirty cities Came forth to war with Rome. IV. But, Roman, when thou standest Look thou with heed on the dark rock V. Since last the Great Twin Brethren Of mortal eyes were seen, Have years gone by an hundred And fourscore and thirteen, That summer a Virginius Was consul first in place; The second was stout Aulus, Of the Posthumian race. The herald of the Latines 269 |