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But memory soon of service done deserteth the ingrate, And ye've thanked the son for life and crown by the father's bloody fate.

'Ye swore upon your kingly faith, to set Don Sancho free, But, curse upon your paltering breath, the light he ne'er did see;

He died in dungeon cold and dim, by Alphonso's base decree,

And visage blind, and stiffened limb, were all they gave

to me.

'The King that swerveth from his word hath stained his purple black,

No Spanish Lord will draw the sword behind a Liar's

back;

But noble vengeance shall be mine, an open hate I'll show

The King hath injured Carpio's line, and Bernard is his foe.'

'Seize-seize him!'-loud the King doth scream-'There are a thousand here

Let his foul blood this instant stream-What! caitiffs, do ye fear?

Seize-seize the traitor!'-But not one to move a finger dareth,

Bernardo standeth by the throne, and calm his sword he bareth.

He drew the faulchion from the sheath, and held it up on

high,

And all the hall was still as death: cried Bernard, ' Here

am I,

And here is the sword that owns no lord, excepting Heaven

and me;

Fain would I know who dares its point-King, Condé, or Grandee!'

Then to his mouth the horn he drew-(it hung below his

cloak)

His ten true men the signal knew, and through the ring they broke;

With helm on head, and blade in hand, the knights the circle brake,

And back the lordlings 'gan to stand, and the false king to quake.

'Ha! Bernard,' quoth Alphonso, 'what means this warlike guise?

Ye know full well I jested-ye know your worth I prize.'— But Bernard turned upon his heel, and smiling passed

away

Long rued Alphonso and his realm the jesting of that day.*

CXIV.

7. G. Lockhart.

THE DAFFODILS.

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

* Bernardo joined the Moors.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company :

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

W. Wordsworth.

CXV.

ADDRESS TO LIGHT.

'PARADISE LOST.' BOOK III.

AIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproachéd light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while, in my flight,

Through utter and through middle darkness' borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan2 lyre,

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp: but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ;
So thick a drop serene3 hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,*
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two, equalled with me in fate
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,7
And Tiresias, and Phineus,& prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

1 Utter darkness, Hell; middle darkness, Chaos,

2 Orpheus visited the infernal regions to regain his wife Eurydice. 3 Drop serene-Gutta Serena.

'Almost all the mountains, grots, and wells from which the Muses have derived their appellations are in Macedonia, Thessaly, or Beotia (Aonia). Such are Pimpla, Pindus, Helicon, Hippocrene, Aganippe, Leibethron, Parnassus, Castalia, and the Corycian cave.'

5 Flowery brooks,-Kedron and Siloam.

6 Thamyris, a Thracian poet.

7 Mæonides, Homer, son of Mæon, or born in Mæonia.

8 Tiresias, a Theban; Phineus, king of Thrace or Bithynia, both blind poets and prophets.

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

7. Milton.

CXVI.

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

(FROM RICHARD III.' ACT I. SC. V.)

DUKE OF CLARENCE and SIR ROBERT BRAKENBURY, Lieutenant

Brak.

of the Tower.

HY looks your grace so heavily to-day?

Clar. O, I have passed a miserable
night,

So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night

Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days:

So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream, my Lord? I pray you tell me.

Clar. Methought that I had broken from the Tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,*

*The Duchess of Burgundy was the sister of Clarence, Gloucester, and Edward IV. Her court was, therefore, the natural resort of the Yorkist party.

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