WE

THE DEATH-BED

E watch'd her breathing thro' the night,
Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed she had

Another morn than ours.

Macaulay

A JACOBITE'S EPITAPH

To my true king I offer'd free from stain Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.

For him I threw lands, honors, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languish'd in a foreign clime,

Gray-hair'd with sorrow in my manhood's prime;
Heard on La Vernia * Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fever'd sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting-place I ask'd, an early grave.

O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

* La Vernia. Vasari speaks of the "Sasso della Vernia," a rocky hill near Arezzo, where, among forests of beech and pine trees, is a convent containing some of the best work of Andrea della Robbia.

Symonds

ON A PICTURE BY POUSSIN * REPRESENTING SHEPHERDS IN ARCADIA

AH happy youths, ah happy maid,

Snatch present pleasure while ye may;
Laugh, dance, and sing in sunny glade,
Your limbs are light, your hearts are gay;
Ye little think there comes a day

("Twill come to you, it came to me)
When love and life shall pass away:
I, too, once dwelt in Arcady.

Or listless lie by yonder stream,

And muse and watch the ripples play,
Or note their noiseless flow, and deem
That life thus gently glides away—
That love is but a sunny ray

To make our years go smiling by.
I knew that stream, I too could dream,
I, too, once dwelt in Arcady.

* In Poussin's picture the shepherds and a shepherdess are deciphering an almost effaced inscription on an old tomb, the words being "Et in Arcadia Ego."

Sing, shepherds, sing; sweet lady, listen;
Sing to the music of the rill,

With happy tears her bright eyes glisten,
For, as each pause the echoes fill,
They waft her name from hill to hill-
So listened my lost love to me,

The voice she loved has long been still;
I, too, once dwelt in Arcady.

Longfellow

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

I

SHOT an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.