And I'll think I see the little stile And, that dumb companion eying, Where we sat side by side, CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON. THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE. WORD was brought to the Danish king That the love of his heart lay suffering, On the brow of that Scandinavian girl And his rose of the isles is dying! Thirty nobles saddled with speed; (Hurry!) Each one mounting a gallant steed His nobles are beaten, one by one; (Hurry!) They have fainted, and faltered, and homeward gone; His little fair page now follows alone, For strength and for courage trying! The king blew a blast on his bugle horn; No answer came; but faint and forlorn The castle portal stood grimly wide; The panting steed, with a drooping crest, The king returned from her chamber of rest, THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET. Whose frame had ne'er been bent "They come around me here, and say And lead my band no more; Their own liege lord and master born, "And what is Death? I've dared him oft Before the Paynim spear, Think ye he's entered at my gate, Has come to seek me here? I've met him, faced him, scorned him, I'll try his might - I'll brave his power; "Ho! sound the tocsin from my tower, Bid each retainer arm with speed, Call every vassal in ; Up with my banner on the wall, A hundred hands were busy then, With many a martial tread, Along the vaulted wall, Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear, Fast hurrying through the outer gate, The mailed retainers poured, On through the portal's frowning arch, O, fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing, came, Like the wind of the south o'er a summer lute blowing, But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands, Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, With naught but the sea-star to light up her tomb. And still, when the merry date-season is burning, The happiest there, from their pastime returning Her dark-flowing hair for some festival day, FROM "HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK," ACT 1. SC. 2. QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. And hushed all its music and withered its frame! Do not, forever, with thy veiled lids Two pale feet crossed in rest, The race is won; HAM. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not Two eyes with coin-weights shut, FROM HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK, ACT 111. SC. 1. HAMLET. To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pains of despised love, the law's delay, SHAKESPEARE. THE TWO MYSTERIES. ["In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death. and then inquiringly into the old man's face, 'You don't know what it is, do you, my dear? said he, and added, 'We don't, either.'"] We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still; The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill; The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call; The strange white solitude of peace that settles over all. We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain; This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again; We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to Nor why we 're left to wonder still, nor why we sleep: do not know. |