PUCK. How now, spirit, whither wander you? FAIRY. Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green : The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favors, In those freckles live their savors: I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. Sc. 1 SHAKESPEARE. Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree, And, listening fearfully, he heard once more Then sighed the voice, "O Rhocus! nevermore Filled up with nectar any mortal heart; We ever ask an undivided love. And he who scorns the least of Nature's works Rhœcus. And though the hand is thronged again, Strange sadness touches all that. O Sea, go with thee. The small birds flaming note, the wild, sharp call, spirite it is sadness all! Share thine own How dark & stein Yonder tool bleff! ~ be with the crow cronow, My Dwn the dead with they low -beating surge. in This is love, who, deaf to prayers, Which is human, which divine. POEMS OF TRAGEDY. IPHIGENEIA AND AGAMEMNON. IPHIGENEIA, when she heard her doom At Aulis, and when all beside the king Had gone away, took his right hand, and said: "O father! I am young and very happy. I do not think the pious Calchas heard Distinctly what the goddess spake; old age Obscures the senses. If my nurse, who knew My voice so well, sometimes misunderstood, While I was resting on her knee both arms, And hitting it to make her mind my words, And looking in her face, and she in mine, Might not he, also, hear one word amiss, Spoken from so far off, even from Olympus?" The father placed his cheek upon her head, And tears dropt down it; but the king of men Replied not. Then the maiden spake once more: "O father! sayest thou nothing? Hearest thou not Me, whom thou ever hast, until this hour, And the down deadened it within the nest ?' Whether, since both my parents willed the change, And the dark depths of nature heaved and burst. She now first shuddered; for in him, so nigh, WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. THE ROMAN FATHER'S SACRIFICE. FROM "VIRGINIA." STRAIGHTWAY Virginius led the maid To where the reeking shambles stood, Where, in a crimson flood, The gurgling stream of blood. Hard by, a flesher on a block Had laid his whittle down: Virginius caught the whittle up, And hid it in his gown. And then his eyes grew very dim, And his throat began to swell, And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, "Farewell, sweet child! Farewell! "O, how I loved my darling! To thee, thou know'st, I was not so, |