The home of my childhood; the haunts of my Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane, prime;
All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time When the feelings were young, and the world
Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view; All, all now forsaken, forgotten, foregone! And I, a lone exile remembered of none,
My high aims abandoned, my good acts un- done,
Aweary of all that is under the sun,
With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain; And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste, Hieing away to the home of her rest, Where she and her mate have scooped their nest, Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
With that sadness of heart which no stranger Away, away, in the wilderness vast
I fly to the desert afar from man.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side! When the wild turmoil of this wearisome life, With its scenes of oppression, corruption, and strife,
Where the white man's foot hath never passed, And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan, A region of emptiness, howling and drear, Which man hath abandoned from famine and fear ;
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone, With the twilight bat from the yawning stone ;
The proud man's frown, and the base man's Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root, fear,
The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear, And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,
Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy; When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,
And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,- O, then there is feeedom, and joy, and pride, Afar in the desert alone to ride!
There is rapture to vault on the champing steed, And to bound away with the eagle's speed, With the death-fraught firelock in my hand, The only law of the Desert Land!
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot; And the bitter-melon, for food and drink, Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink ; A region of drought, where no river glides, Nor rippling brook with osiered sides; Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount, Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount, Appears, to refresh the aching eye; But the barren earth and the burning sky, And the blank horizon, round and round, Spread, void of living sight or sound. And here, while the night-winds round me sigh, And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky, As I sit apart by the desert stone, Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,
A still small voice comes through the wild (Like a father consoling his fretful child), Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear, Saying, Man is distant, but God is near!
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, Within doors or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own ; Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse, Without all hope of day!
SELECTIONS FROM "PARADISE LOST.” EVE'S LAMENT.
O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of gods; where I had hope to spend,
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