fear,

The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear, And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,

Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy; When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,

And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,
O, then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the desert alone to ride!

There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle's speed,
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand,
The only law of the Desert Land!

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side, Away, away from the dwellings of men,

Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot;
And the bitter-melon, for food and drink,
Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink;
A region of drought, where no river glides,
Nor rippling brook with osiered sides;
Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount,
Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,
Appears, to refresh the aching eye;
But the barren earth and the burning sky,
And the blank horizon, round and round,
Spread, void of living sight or sound.
And here, while the night-winds round me sigh,
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit apart by the desert stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,

"A still small voice" comes through the wild (Like a father consoling his fretful child), Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear,

graze,

And the kudu and eland unhunted recline

THOMAS PRINGLE.

vine;

Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,
And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood,
And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will
In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his
fill.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry
Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively;
And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh
Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,
With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;
And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,
Hieing away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view
In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.

Afar in the desert I love to ride,

With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
Away, away, in the wilderness vast

Where the white man's foot hath never passed,

And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan

Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan,
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,

EVE'S LAMENT.

O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye nammes !
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount!
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from
thee

How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

THE DEPARTURE FROM PARADISE.

ADAM TO MICHAEL.

GENTLY hast thou told

fear;

Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone, With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;

Departure from this happy place, our sweet Recess, and only consolation left,

| Familiar to our eyes, all places else

Inhospitable appear and desolate,

.

Nor knowing us nor known; and if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries.
But prayer against his absolute decree
No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth;
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
This most afflicts me, that, departing hence,
As from his face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed countenance, here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he vouch-

safed

Presence divine, and to my sons relate,

On this mount he appeared; under this tree
Stood visible; among these pines his voice
I heard; here with him at this fountain talked :
So many grateful altars I would rear

Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon
Offersweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footstep trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet, recalled
To life prolonged and promised race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.

Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend,
Merciful over all his works, with good
Still overcoming evil, and by small

.

KENT. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

GENTLEMAN. Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;

And now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek, it seemed she was a queen Over her passion; who, most rebel-like, Sought to be king o'er her.

KENT. O, then it moved her. GENT. Not toa rage: patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest. You have seen Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears Were like a better way: those happy smilets, That played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know

weak

Subverting worldly strong and worldly wise

sorrow

1

Is fortitude to highest victory,

And to the faithful death the gate of life: Taught this by his example, whom I now Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blest.

Could so become it.

FLORENCE VANE.

SHAKESPEARE.

EVE TO ADAM.

WITH Sorrow and heart's distress Wearied, I fell asleep. But now lead on ; In me is no delay; with thee to go, Is to stay here; without thee here to stay, Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me Art all things under heaven, all places thou, Who for my wilful crime art banished hence. This further consolation, yet secure, I carry hence; though all by me is lost, Such favor I unworthy am vouchsafed, By me the promised Seed shall all restore.

I LOVED thee long and dearly,
Florence Vane;

My life's bright dream and early
Hath come again;

I renew in my fond vision
My heart's dear pain,
My hopes and thy derision,
Florence Vane !

The ruin, lone and hoary,
The ruin old,
Where thou didst hark my story,
At even told,

SAMSON AGONISTES.

SAMSON.

A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little farther on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade:
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoined me,
Where I a prisoner, chained, scarce freely draw
The air imprisoned also, close and damp,
Unwholesome draught; but here I feel amends,
The breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure and
sweet,

With day-spring born: here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn feast the people hold

To Dagon, their sea-idol, and forbid
Laborious works: unwillingly this rest
Their superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O, wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an angel, who at last in sight
Of both my parents all in flames ascended
From off the altar, where an offering burned,
As in a fiery column, charioting

His godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit revealed to Abraham's race?
Why was my breeding ordered and prescribed
As of a person separate to God,

Designed for great exploits, if I must die
Betrayed, captived, and both my eyes put out,
Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in brazen fetters under task
With this Heaven-gifted strength? O glorious
strength,

Put to the labor of a beast, debased
Lower than bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke!

O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O, worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become

Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me:
They creep, yet see; I dark in light exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,

My tyrant husband forged the tale

Which chains me in this dismal cell;
My fate unknown my friends bewail, -
O jailer, haste that fate to tell!
O, haste my father's heart to cheer!
His heart at once 't will grieve and glad
To know, though kept a captive here,
I am not mad, I am not mad!

He smiles in scorn, and turns the key;
He quits the grate; I knelt in vain;
His glimmering lamp still, still I see,
'Tis gone! and all is gloom again.
Cold, bitter cold! - No warmth no light!
Life, all thy comforts once I had;
Yet here I'm chained, this freezing night,
Although not mad; no, no, not mad!
'T is sure some dream, some vision vain ;
What! I, the child of rank and wealth,
Am I the wretch who clanks this chain,
Bereft of freedom, friends, and health?
Ah while I dwell on blessings fled,

Which nevermore my heart must glad, How aches my heart, how burns my head; But 't is not mad; no, 't is not mad!

Hast thou, my child, forgot, ere this,

A mother's face, a mother's tongue?
She'll ne'er forget your parting kiss,
Nor round her neck how fast you clung;
Nor how with her you sued to stay;

Nor how that suit your sire forbade ;
Nor how I'll drive such thoughts away;
They'll make me mad, they'll make me mad!

His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled!

His mild blue eyes, how bright they shone! None ever bore a lovelier child,

And art thou now forever gone?

And must I never see thee more,

My pretty, pretty, pretty lad? I will be free! unbar the door! I am not mad; I am not mad!

O, hark! what mean those yells and cries? His chain some furious madman breaks; He comes, - I see his glaring eyes ;

Now, now, my dungeon-grate he shakes. Help! Help!-He's gone !-0, fearful woe, Such screams to hear, such sights to see! My brain, my brain, I know, I know I am not mad, but soon shall be.

[Written in the spring of 1819, when suffering from physical depression, the precursor of his death, which happened soon after.]

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains"
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk ;
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-ward had sunk,
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thy happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of Summer in full-throated ease. O for a draught of vintage

Cooled a long age in the deep-delvéd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburned mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stainéd mouth,

That I might drink, and leave the world un

seen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret:

Here, where men sit and hear each other

groan,