poetry, but letting it come when it will and how it will, and striking it off at a heat. THE DEATH OF CLYTEMNESTRA. ORESTES AND ELECTRA. Electra. Pass on, my brother! she awaits the wretch, Dishonourer, despoiler, murderer None other name shall name him-she awaits Give the sword scope-think what a man was he, How fond of her! how kind to all about, That he might gladden and teach us-how proud Of thee, Orestes! tossing thee above His joyous head and calling thee his crown. Bite not thy lip, Nor tramp as an unsteady colt the ground, Nor stare against the wall, but think again How better than all fathers was our father. Go. Orestes. Loose me then! for this white hand, Electra, Hath fastened upon mine with fiercer grasp Than I can grasp the sword. Electra. Go, sweet Orestes, I knew not I was holding thee-Avenge him! (Alone). How he sprang from me! Sure he now hath reached The room before the bath! The bath-door creaks! It hath creaked thus since he-since thou, O father! Ever since thou didst loosen its strong valves, Either with all thy dying weight, or strength Me (son of him who ruled this land and more) Would I had been so Oh that Zeus For ever! ere such vengeance— Electra Had let thy arm fall sooner at thy side Without those drops! list! they are audible For they are many-from the sword's point falling Too rash Orestes! Couldst thou not then have spared our wretched mother? Orestes. The Gods could not. Orestes. And didst not thou,— She was not theirs, Orestes! 'Twas I! 'twas I who did it! Of our unhappy house the most unhappy! Under this roof, by every God accurst, There is no grief, there is no guilt, but mine. Orestes. Electra! no! 'Tis now my time to suffer Mine be, with all its pangs, the righteous deed! What a picture is that of Agamemnon and his boy, "Tossing thee above His joyous head and calling thee his crown!" Long may Mr. Landor conceive such pictures, and write such scenes! The days are happily past when the paltry epithet of "Cockney Poets" could be bestowed upon Keats and Leigh Hunt: the world has outlived them. People would as soon think of applying such a word to Dr. Johnson. Happily, too, one of the delightful writers who were the objects of these unworthy attacks has outlived them also; has lived to attain a popularity of the most genial kind, and to diffuse, through a thousand pleasant channels, many of the finest parts of our finest writers. He has done good service to literature in another way, by enriching our language with some of the very best translations since Cowley. Who ever thought to see Tasso's famous passage in the "Amyntas" so rendered? ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. O lovely age of gold! Not that the rivers rolled With milk, or that the woods wept honey-dew; Not that the reedy ground Produced without a wound, Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew; Not that a cloudless blue For ever was in sight; Or that the heaven which burns, And now is cold by turns, Looked out in glad and everlasting light; No, nor that even the insolent ships from far Brought war to no new lands, nor riches worse than war. Who, again, ever hoped to see such an English version of one of Petrarch's most characteristic poems, conceits and all ? PETRARCH'S CONTEMPLATIONS OF DEATH IN THE BOWER OF LAURA. Clear, fresh, and dulcet streams, Which the fair shape who seems To me sole woman, haunted at noontide; Fair bough, so gently lit, (I sigh to think of it) Which lent a pillar to her lovely side; And turf and flowers bright-eyed, O'er which her folded gown Flowed like an angel's down; And you, O holy air and hushed, Where first my heart at her sweet glances gushed, To my last words, my last, and my lamenting. If 'tis my fate below, And heaven will have it so, That love must close these dying eyes in tears, May my poor dust be laid In middle of your shade, While my soul, naked, mounts to its own spheres. The thought would calm my fears When taking, out of breath, The doubtful step of death; For never could my spirit find A stiller port after the stormy wind; Nor in more calm abstracted bourne Slip from my travelled flesh, and from my bones out worn. Perhaps, some future hour, To her accustomed bower Might come the untamed, and yet gentle she ; And where she saw me first, Might turn with eyes athirst And kinder joy to look again for me; Then, oh the charity! Seeing amidst the stones The earth that held my bones, A sigh for very love at last Might ask of heaven to pardon me the past; |