A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

IX.

BYRON.

And made him friends of mountains; with the

JAFFAR, star's And the quick Spirit of the universe

JAFFAR, the Barmecide, the good vizier, He held his dialogues : and they did teach

The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer, To him the magic of their mysteries ;

Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust; To him the book of Night was opened wide,

And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust And voices from the deep abyss revealed

Of what the good, and e'en the bad, might say, A marvel and a secret. — Be it so.

Ordained that no man living from that day
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death.

All Araby and Persia held their breath ;
My dream was past; it had no further change.

All but the brave Mondeer : he, proud to show It was of a strange order, that the doom

How far for love a grateful soul could go,
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out And facing death for very scorn and grief
Almost like a reality, — the one
To end in madness, both in misery

(For his great heart wanted a great relief),
Stood forth in Bagdad daily, in the square
Where once had stood a happy house, and there
Harangued the tremblers at the scymitar

On all they owed to the divine Jaffar.
YUSSOUF.

* Bring me this man," the caliph cried; the man

Was brought, was gazed upon. The mutes began A STRANGER came one night to Yussouf's tent,

To bind his arms. "Welcome, brave cords," Saying, “ Behold one outcast and in dread,

cried he ; Against whose life the bow of power is bent,

' From bonds far worse Jaffar delivered me ; Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head ;

From wants, from shames, from loveless houseI come to thee for shelter and for food,

hold fears ; To Yussouf, called through all our tribes “The

Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears ; , Good.'”

Restored me, loved me, put me on a par

With his great self. How can I pay Jaffar ?" “This tent is mine," said Yussouf, “but no more Than it is God's ; come in, and be at peace ; Haroun, who felt that on a soul like this Freely shalt thou partake of all my store The mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss, As I of His who buildeth over these

Now deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate Our tents his glorious roof of night and day, Might smile upon another half as great. And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay." He said, “ Let worth grow frenzied if it will ;

The caliph's judgment shall be master still. So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, Go, and since gifts so move thee, take this gem, And, waking him ere day, said : “Here is gold, The richest in the Tartar's diadem, My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight, And hold the giver as thou deemest fit !" Depart before the prying day grow

bold.” “Gifts !” cried the friend ; he took, and hold. As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.

High toward the heavens, as though to meet his

star, That inward light the stranger's face made grand, Exclaimed, “This, too, I owe to thee, Jaffar!” Which shines from allself-conquest; kneeling low, He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand, Sobbing: “O Sheik, I cannot leave thee so; I will repay thee; all this thou hast done

HARMOSAN. Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!”

Now the third and fatal conflict for the Persian “Take thrice the gold,” said Yussouf, “for with

throne was done, thee

And the Moslem's fiery valor had the crowning Into the desert, never to return,

victory won. My one black thought shall ride away from me; First-born, for whom by day and night 1 yearn, Harmosan, the last and boldest the invader to Balanced and just are all of God's decrees ;

defy, Thouart avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace!" Captive, overborne by numbers, they were bringJAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

ing forth to die.

ing it

LEICH HUNT.

so,"

LEIGH HU:

Then exclaimed that noble captive: “Lo, I per “ And is mine one ?” said Abou. “Nay,

ish in my thirst; Give me but one drink of water, and let then Replied the angel. - Abou spoke more low, arrive the worst !"

But cheerly still ; and said, “I pray thee, th

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." In his hand he took the goblet; but awhile the draught forbore,

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next ni Seeming doubtfully the purpose of the foeman to It came again, with a great wakening light, explore.

And showed the names whom love of God Well might then have paused the bravest, -—- for, And, lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest

blessed, around him, angry foes With a hedge of naked weapons did that lonely

man enclose. “But what fear’st thou ?” cried the caliph; " is

A PSALM OF LIFE. it, friend, a secret blow ? Fear it not ! our gallant Moslems no such

TELL me not, in mournful numbers, treacherous dealing know.

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers, “Thou mayst quench thy thirst securely, for And things are not what they seem.

thou shalt not die before Thou hast drunk that cup of water, this reprieve

Life is real! Life is earnest ! is thine - no more !”

And the grave is not its goal ;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Quick the satrap dashed the goblet down to

Was not spoken of the soul. earth with ready hand, And the liquid sank forever, lost amid the burn Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow “ Thou hast said that mine my life is, till the Find us farther than to-day.

water of that cup I have drained ; then bid thy servants that Art is long, and Time is fleeting, spilled water gather up!"

And our hearts, though stout and bra

Still, like muffled drums, are beating For a moment stood the caliph as by doubtful Funeral marches to the grave.

passions stirred ; Then exclaimed, “Forever sacred must remain In the world's broad field of battle, a monarch's word.

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! “Bring another cup, and straightway to the

Be a hero in the strife ! noble Persian give : Drink, I said before, and perish,

- now I bid

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! thee drink and live!”

Let the dead Past bury its dead ! Act, – act in the living Present !

Heart within, and God o'erhead !

ing sand.

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH.

ABOU BEN ADHEM.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase !)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold :
Exceeding peace had made Ben Alhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou ?” — The vision raised its

head,
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, “The names of those who love the

Lord."

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

FROM PHILASTER.

| 'T is sweet to see the evening star appear;

'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep I FOUND him sitting by a fountain-side, Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst, From leaf to leaf ; 't is sweet to view on high And paid the nymph again as much in tears.

The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. A garland lay him by, made by himself, Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near

home; · Delighted me : but ever when he turned His tender eyes upon them he would weep,

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark As if he meant to make them grow again.

Our coming, and look brighter when we come ; Seeing such pretty helpless innocence

'T is sweet to be awakened by the lark, Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.

Or lulled by falling waters ; sweet the hum He told me that his parents gentle died,

Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,

The lisp of children, and their earliest words. Which gave him roots ; and of the crystal springs, Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes Which did not stop their courses ; and the sun, Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.

In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth, Then took he up his garland, and did show

Purple and gushing : sweet are our escapes What every flower, as country people hold,

From civic revelry to rural mirth ; Did signify; and how all, ordered thus,

Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps ;

Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth ; Expressed his grief ; and to my thoughts did read

Sweet is revenge, The prettiest lecture of his country art

especially to women, That could be wished ; so that methought I could Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen. Have studied it. I gladly entertained him, Who was as glad to follow.

'T is sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels,

By blood or ink; 't is sweet to put an end
To strife ; 't is sometimes sweet to have our

quarrels,

Particularly with a tiresome friend ;
WHY THUS LONGING ?

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels ;
Why thus longing, thus forever sighing,

Dear is the helpless creature we defend For the far-off, unattained and dim,

Against the world ; and dear the school-boy spot While the beautiful, all round thee lying,

We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching,

Is first and passionate love, - it stands alone, All thy restless yearnings it would still ; Like Adam's recollection of his fall; Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching

The tree of knowledge has been plucked, -- all's Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill.

known,
Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee And life yields nothing further to recall
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw,

Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown,
If no silken cord of love hath bound thee No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven
To some little world through weal and woe;

Fire which Prometheus filched for us from heaven. If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten,

No fond voices answer to thine own;
If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten,

L' ALLEGRO.
By daily sympathy and gentle tone.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born!

In Stygian cave forlorn, 'TIS SWEET.

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights

unholy, JUAN.

Find out some uncouth cell, .. 'Tis sweet to hear, Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep,

BYRON.

HARRIET WINSLOW.

wings, The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,

And the night-raven sings ; By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep; | There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,

FROM

DON

And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou goddess fair and free, In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne, And, by inen, heart-easing Mirth ! Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, With two sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore ; Or whether (as some sages sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying, There, on beds of violets blue And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks and wreathéd smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek, – Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides. Come ! and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe ; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honor due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreprovéd pleasures free, To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull Night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled Dawn doth rise ; Then to come, in spite of Sorrow, And at my window bid good morrow, Through the sweet-brier, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine ; While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before ; Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, From the side of some hoar hill Through the high wood echoing shrill ; Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great sun begins his state, Robed in fames, and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman near at hand Whistles o’er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe,

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasur
Whilst the landscape round it measures
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray,
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest,
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savory dinner set
Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses ;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
| The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade ;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday,
Till the livelong daylight fail ;
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale
With stories told of many a feat :
How fairy Mab the junkets eat,
She was pinched and pulled, she said,
And he, by friar's lantern led ;
| Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
| That ten day-laborers could not end ;
Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretched out all the chimney's length
Basks at the fire his hairy strength,
And, crop-full, out of doors he flings
Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain intluence, and judge the prize

SHAKESPEARE.

Of wit or arms, while both contend

| Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, To win her grace whom all commend.

Become the touches of sweet harmony. There let Hymen oft appear

Sit, Jessica : look, how the floor of heaven In saffron robe, with taper clear,

| Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold : And pomp and feast and revelry, .

There's not the smallest orb which thou beWith mask, and antique pageantry, -

hold'st, Such sights as youthful poets dream

But in his motion like an angel sings, On summer eves by haunted stream;

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ; Then to the well-trod stage anon,

Such harmony is in immortal souls : If Johnson's learned sock be on,

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child, Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. Warble his native wood-notes wild.

JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet And ever, against eating cares,

music. Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

LOR. The reason is your spirits are attentive. Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce,

Therefore the poet In notes with many a winding bout

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and Of linkéd sweetness long drawn out,

floods ; With wanton heed and giddy cunning Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage, The melting voice through mazes running,

But music for the time doth change his nature. Untwisting all the chains that tie

The man that hath no music in himself, The hidden soul of harmony, —

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, That Orpheus' self may heave his head

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; From golden slumber on a bed

The motions of his spirit are dull as night, Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear

And his affections dark as Erebus :
Such strains as would have won the ear

Let no such man be trusted.
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.

Music, when soft voices die,
These delights if thou canst give,

Vibrates in the memory, —
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
JOHN MILTON.

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, · MUSIC.

Are heaped for the belovéd's bed ;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
FROM "TWELFTH NIGHT."

Love itself shall slumber on.
DUKE. IF music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

WHERE music dwells The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Lingering, and wandering on, as loath to die, That strain again ;- it had a dying fall :

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 0, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,

That they were born for immortality. That breathes upon a bank of violets,

WORDSWORTH. Stealing, and giving odor.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,

| To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. The soul of music slumbers in the shell,

CONGREVE. Till waked and kindled by the master's spell; And feeling hearts — touch them but rightly — pour

ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR THE POWER A thousand melodies unheard before !

OF MUSIC.
SAMUEL ROGERS.

AN ODE.
FROM "MERCHANT OF VENICE."

'T was at the royal feast, for Persia won LORENZO. How sweet the moonlight sleeps . By Philip's warlike son : upon this bank !

Aloft in awful state Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music

The godlike hero sate

SHELLEY

SHAKESPEARE.

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