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210 FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

SHAKESPEARE.

LORENZO.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica look, how the floor of heaven

:

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

[Enter Musicians.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

JESSICA.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

LORENZO.

The reasons, your spirits are attentive;
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

[Music.

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood;

THE POET.

If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze

211

By the sweet power of music; therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils :
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

THE POET.

From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel."

SCOTT.

CALL it not vain; they do not err,
Who say that when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies;
Who say, tall cliff, and cavern lone,
For the departed Bard make moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distil;
Through his loved groves that breezes sigh,
And oaks, in deeper groan, reply;

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And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave.

Not that, in sooth, o'er mortal urn
Those things inanimate can mourn;
But that the stream, the wood, the gale,
Is vocal with the plaintive wail
Of those who, else forgotten long,
Lived in the poet's faithful song;
And, with the poet's parting breath,
Whose memory feels a second death.
The maid's pale shade, who wails her lot,
That love, true love, should be forgot,
From rose and hawthorn shakes the tear
Upon the gentle Minstrel's bier;
The phantom Knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o'er the field he heaped with dead;
Mounts the wild blast that sweeps amain,
And shrieks along the battle-plain.
The Chief, whose antique crownlet long
Still sparkled in the feudal song,

Now, from the mountain's misty throne,
Sees, in the thanedom once his own,
His ashes undistinguished lie,

His place, his power, his memory die;
His groans the lonely caverns fill;
His tears of rage impel the rill:

All mourn the minstrel's harp unstrung,
Their name unknown, their praise unsung.

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE. 213

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.

A Spanish Girl in Reverie.

O. W. HOLMES.

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SHE twirled the string of golden beads
That round her neck was hung -
My grandsire's gift; the good old man
Loved girls when he was young;
And, bending lightly o'er the chord,
And turning half away,

With something like a youthful sigh,
Thus spoke the maiden gay:-

"Well, one may trail her silken robe,
And bind her locks with pearls ;
And one may wreathe the woodland rose
Among her floating curls;

And one may tread the dewy grass,

And one the marble floor,

Nor half-hid bosom heave the less,

Nor broidered corset more!

"Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl,
Was sitting in the shade, -
There's something brings her to my mind
In that young dreaming maid, —
And in her hand she held a flower,
A flower whose speaking hue
Said, in the language of the heart,
Believe the giver true.

214

ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.

"And as she looked upon its leaves,
The maiden made a vow

To wear it when the bridal wreath
Was woven for her brow;

She watched the flower, as, day by day,
The leaflets curled and died;

But he who gave it never came
To claim her for his bride.

"O, many a summer's morning glow
Has leant the rose its ray,

And many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she has kept that faithless pledge
To this her winter hour,
And keeps it still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower."

Her pale lip quivered, and the light
Gleamed in her moistening eyes.

I asked her how she liked the tints
In those Castilian skies:

"She thought them misty-'twas perhaps
Because she stood too near."

She turned away, and as she turned,

I saw her wipe a tear.

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