CLII

LAGRIMAS

God send me tears!

Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain,
Give me the melting heart of other years
And let me weep again!

Before me pass

The shapes of things inexorably true.
Gone is the sparkle of transforming dew
From every blade of grass.

In life's high noon

Aimless I stand, my promised task undone,
And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun
That will go down too soon.

Turned into gall

Are the sweet joys of childhood's sunny reign ;
And memory is a torture, love a chain

That binds my life in thrall.

And childhood's pain

Could to me now the purest rapture yield;
I pray for tears as in his parching field
The husbandman for rain.

We pray in vain !

The sullen sky flings down its blaze of brass,
The joys of life all scorched and withering pass;
I shall not weep again.

Col. John Hay.

CLIII

SONG

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,

And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,

He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,

And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

Tennyson.

CLII

O LACRIMARUM FONS!

Da tandem lacrimas, Deus. tandem solve gravi tempora vinculo! o si pectus aeneum

mollescat teneris, ut prius, imbribus!
me praesentia nil iuvant,
et fictas animus spernit imagines :
non Aurora liquoribus

pingit sicca mihi gramina roscidis :-
inclinante meridie

perfectum est operis nil mihi debiti: mox cernam cadere ocius exustis oculis praecipites rotas. caligo violat dies

suffusas nitida luce puertiae,

quorum dum memini, Venus torquet cor lacerum compede ferrea. o si fas puerilibus

instaurare foret gaudia fletibus!
campo rusticus hispido
deposcit pluviam, sic lacrimas ego.
nil vanae efficiunt preces,
aeratoque minax sol rutilat polo,
torrens quidquid amabile est;
iamque in perpetuum flere negabitur.

E. D. S.

CLIII ἵκετο φωνή

Voce tua resonant praenuntia tympana belli, quo tuus accitu miles in arma ruit. coniugis ante oculos dilectae surgit imago,

stringitur in Martem vincere certa manus. paulisper dum signa novae dant classica pugnae scandentes pueros in tua genua videt. tum rapida velut ignis in hostem fulminat ira;— sternit humi victor fretus amore tuo.

CLIV

Come out to the meadows that glisten,
The winter is over and gone:

There is music for all who will listen,

And the earth will be dancing anon.
Come down to the banks of the river,
Those waters as silver have shone,
Joy thrills in the ripples that shiver,

And the waves will be dancing anon.
Spring whispers a word in the bushes,

Her voice through the forest has gone,
Love wakes in the song of the thrushes,
And the leaves will be dancing anon.
We have done with the winter of sadness,

Ah! Friend, the year's birthday has shone:
Then welcome the message of gladness,

And your heart will be dancing anon.

CLV

H. V. M.

Then rose the King and moved his host by night,
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league,
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse—
A land of old up-heaven from the abyss
By fire, to fall into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
And the long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.
There the pursuer could pursue no more,
And he that fled no further fly the King;

And there, that day when the great light of heaven Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year,

On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.

Tennyson,

CLIV

PRID. KAL. MART.

Surge age, tempus erat lucentes quaerere campos,
bruma fuit: gelidi, crede, fuere dies.
carmina non desunt carmen sperantibus: ultro
mox dederit veris conscia terra choros.
surge age, flumineaeque volens advertere ripae,
cernis ut argento purior amnis eat?
quos horrere vides trepidant in gaudia fluctus,
iam iam Naiadum senseris ire choros.
excidit ore deae virgulta per omnia murmur,
audiit attonitum, vere vocante, nemus,
nascitur, et turdis amor implet amabile carmen,
iamque choros agmen ducit Hamadryadum.
bruma fuit, longi, mihi crede, fuere dolores,
prima dies anni fulsit, amice, novi.
venit laetitiae tibi nuntius: accipe vocem :
mens tua se vernis iunxerit ipsa choris.

CLV
CONCURRITUR

H. V. M.

Exsurgit simul et moto Rex agmine noctu per spatia aequa viae sensim premit usque rebelles Hesperium ad finem retro solemque cadentem. mira fuit tellus, violentis ignibus olim eiecta ad lucem rursum illapsura profundo; hanc veterum populorum amisso nomine rarae relliquiae incoluere, et culmina longa iugorum claudit harenosum nunquam non mobile litus, quod pallens velut umbra procul circumgemit aequor. hic neutri locus est, qui prosequiturve sequendi, qui refugitve fugae venturi Regis ab armis ; hic ergo oppositi, quo sese maxima caeli flamma die minimum volvendo extollit in anno, ad vastum in vasta concurrunt aequor harena.

CLVI

DOUBT AND PRAYER

Tho' Sin too oft, when smitten by Thy rod,
Rail at "Blind Fate" with many a vain “Alas!”
From Sin thro' sorrow unto Thee we pass

By that same path our true forefathers trod ;
And let not Reason fail me, nor the sod
Draw from my death Thy living flower and grass,
Before I learn that Love, which is and was
My Father, and my Brother, and my God!
Steel me with patience! Soften me with grief!
Let blow the trumpet strongly while I pray,
Till this embattled wall of unbelief
My prison, not my fortress, fall away!
Then if Thou willest, let my day be brief,
So Thou wilt strike Thy glory thro' the day.

Tennyson.

CLVII

SONG

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me

With showers and dew-drops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

C. G. Rossetti.