DIRGE

By Shakespeare

(Schelling pare 147)

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winters' rares;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;

Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft harm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have,

And renowned be thy grave."

Again in the following we shall note the strangely

pathetic sweetness.

EVELYN HOPE

By Robert Browning

(Vic. An. page 354)

"Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think: The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

But the time will come, at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amer, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own eranium's red And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the rains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while.

My heart seemed full as it could hold? There was place and to spare for the frank young

smile,

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young

So, hush, I will

See, I shut it

There that is our

rold.

give you this leaf to keep:
inside the sweet cold hand!
secret: ro to sleep!

You will wake, and remember, and under st and. "