Inhospitable appear and desolate,

Nor knowing us nor known; and if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries.
But prayer against his absolute decree

No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth;
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
This most afflicts me, that, departing hence,
As from his face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed countenance, here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he vouch-

safed

Presence divine, and to my sons relate,

On this mount he appeared; under this tree
Stood visible; among these pines his voice
I heard; here with him at this fountain talked :
So many grateful altars I would rear

Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon
Offersweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footstep trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet, recalled
To life prolonged and promised race,
I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.

Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend,
Merciful over all his works, with good
Still overcoming evil, and by small
Accomplishing great things, by things deemed

weak

Subverting worldly strong and worldly wise
By simply meek; that suffering for truth's sake
Is fortitude to highest victory,
And to the faithful death the gate of life:
Taught this by his example, whom I now
Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blest.

EVE TO ADAM.

WITH Sorrow and heart's distress

Wearied, I fell asleep. But now lead on ;
In me is no delay; with thee to go,
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under heaven, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banished hence.
This further consolation, yet secure,
I carry hence; though all by me is lost,
Such favor I unworthy am vouchsafed,
By me the promised Seed shall all restore.

FLORENCE VANE.

I LOVED thee long and dearly,
Florence Vane;

My life's bright dream and early
Hath come again;

I renew in my fond vision
My heart's dear pain,
My hopes and thy derision,
Florence Vane !

The ruin, lone and hoary,
The ruin old,
Where thou didst hark my story,
At even told,

SAMSON AGONISTES.

SAMSON.

A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little farther on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade:
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoined me,
Where I a prisoner, chained, scarce freely draw
The air imprisoned also, close and damp,
Unwholesome draught; but here I feel amends,
The breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure and
sweet,

With day-spring born: here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn feast the people hold
To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works: unwillingly this rest
Their superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O, wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an angel, who at last in sight
Of both my parents all in flames ascended
From off the altar, where an offering burned,
As in a fiery column, charioting

His godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit revealed to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,
Designed for great exploits, if I must die
Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out,
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in brazen fetters under task
With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious
strength,

Put to the labor of a beast, debased
Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke!

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain !
Blind among enemies, O, worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become

Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me:
They creep, yet see; I dark in light exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,

And what I was, and what should be. I'll rave no more in proud despair; My language shall be mild, though sad; But yet I firmly, truly swear,

I am not mad, I am not mad!

My tyrant husband forged the tale
Which chains me in this dismal cell;
My fate unknown my friends bewail,

O jailer, haste that fate to tell!
O, haste my father's heart to cheer!
His heart at once 't will grieve and glad
To know, though kept a captive here,
I am not mad, I am not mad!

He smiles in scorn, and turns the key;
He quits the grate; I knelt in vain ;
His glimmering lamp still, still I see,

"T is gone! and all is gloom again.
Cold, bitter cold! No warmth no light!
Life, all thy comforts once I had;
Yet here I'm chained, this freezing night,
Although not mad; no, no, — not mad!
'T is sure some dream, some vision vain ;
What! I, the child of rank and wealth,
Am I the wretch who clanks this chain,
Bereft of freedom, friends, and health?
Ah! while I dwell on blessings fled,

Which nevermore my heart must glad, How aches my heart, how burns my head; But 't is not mad; no, 't is not mad!

Hast thou, my child, forgot, ere this,

A mother's face, a mother's tongue?
She'll ne'er forget your parting kiss,
Nor round her neck how fast you clung;
Nor how with her you sued to stay;

Nor how that suit your sire forbade ;
Nor how I'll drive such thoughts away;
They'll make me mad, they'll make me mad!

His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled!

His mild blue eyes, how bright they shone! None ever bore a lovelier child,

And art thou now forever gone?

And must I never see thee more,

My pretty, pretty, pretty lad? I will be free unbar the door! I am not mad; I am not mad!

O, hark! what mean those yells and cries? His chain some furious madman breaks; He comes, I see his glaring eyes;

Now, now, my dungeon-grate he shakes. Help! Help!-He's gone!— O, fearful woe, Such screams to hear, such sights to see! My brain, my brain, I know, I know I am not mad, but soon shall be.

[Written in the spring of 1819, when suffering from physical de pression, the precursor of his death, which happened soon after.] My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk ; Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-ward had sunk. 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thy happiness, That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of Summer in full-throated ease. O for a draught of vintage

Cooled a long age in the deep-delvéd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburned mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth,

That I might drink, and leave the world un

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of bees on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a muséd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now, more than ever, seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight, with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad, In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain,

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown :
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for
home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that ofttimes hath

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hillside; and now 't is buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision or a waking dream?
Fled is that music, - do I wake or sleep?
JOHN KEATS.

THE PALMER.

FROM "MARMION."

WHENAS the Palmer came in hall,
No lord, nor knight, was there more tall,
Or had a statelier step withal,

Or looked more high and keen;
For no saluting did he wait,
But strode across the hall of state,
And fronted Marmion where he sate,

As he his peer had been.

But his gaunt frame was worn with toil;
His cheek was sunk, alas the while!
And when he struggled at a smile,
His eye looked haggard wild:
Poor wretch the mother that him bare,
If she had been in presence there,
In his wan face and sunburned hair
She had not known her child.
Danger, long travel, want, or woe,
Soon change the form that best we know, -
For deadly fear can time outgo,

And blanch at once the hair;

Hard toil can roughen form and face,
And want can quench the eye's bright grace,
Nor does old age a wrinkle trace,

More deeply than despair.
Happy whom none of these befall,
But this poor Palmer knew them all.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

WOOLSEY'S FALL.

FROM "HENRY VIII."

Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.

Forlorn the very word is like a bell,

To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu the Fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.