"SEEK NOT T' EXPLORE WHAT TERM OF LIFE FOR THEE OR ME MAY BE IN STORE-(DERBY'S HORACE)

Thrice have their boldest chiefs this point assailed,
The two Ajaces, brave Idomeneus,

The Atridae both, and Tydeus' warlike son,

Or by the prompting of some heaven-taught seer,
Or by their own adventurous courage led."

To whom great Hector of the glancing helm :
"Think not, dear wife, that by such thoughts as
these,

My heart has ne'er been wrung; but I should blush
To face the men and long-robed dames of Troy,

If, like a coward, I should shun the fight.
Nor could my soul the lessons of my youth
So far forget, whose boast it still has been
In the fore-front of battle to be found,
Charged with my father's glory and mine own.
Yet in my inmost soul too well I know,

The day must come when this our sacred Troy,
And Priam's race, and Priam's royal self,
Shall in one common ruin be o'erthrown.
But not the thoughts of Troy's impending fate,
Nor Hecuba's nor royal Priam's woes,

Nor loss of brethren, numerous and brave,
By hostile hands laid prostrate in the dust,
So deeply wring my heart as thoughts of thee,
Thy days of freedom lost, and led away
A weeping captive by some brass-clad Greek;
Haply at Argos, at a mistress' beck,

Condemned to ply the loom, of water draw
From Hypereia's or Messëis' fount,

Heart-wrung, by stern necessity constrained.
Then they who see thy tears perchance may say,
'So, this was Hector's wife, who, when they fought
On plains of Troy, was Ilion's bravest chief.'
Thus may they speak; and thus thy grief renew

AND NONE MAY STAY THEIR COURSE."-DERBY'S HORACE.

WISER FAR, WHATE'ER OUR FUTURE FATE MAY SEND, WITH CHEERFUL MIND TO BEAR."-DERBY'S HORACE.

"MAN'S WILD SOUL, IN FIERCE COMMOTION, STILL BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF REASON,-(SCHILLER)

160

66 EVER SOME DISTANT BLISS APPEARS, -(DERBY'S SCHILLER)

EARL OF DERBY.

For loss of him who might have been thy shield,
To rescue thee from slavery's bitter hour.
Oh, may I sleep in dust, ere be condemned
To hear thy cries and see thee dragged away!"

Thus as he spoke, great Hector stretched his arms
To take his child; but back the infant shrank,
Crying, and sought his nurse's sheltering breast,
Scared by the brazen helm and horse-hair plume,
That nodded, fearful, on the warrior's crest.
Laughed the fond parents both, and from his brow
Hector the casque removed, and set it down,

. All glittering, on the ground; then kissed his child,
And danced him in his arms; then thus to Jove
And to the Immortals all addressed his prayer:

'Grant, Jove, and all ye gods, that this my son
May be, as I, the foremost man of Troy,

For valour famed, his country's guardian king;
That men may say, 'This youth surpasses far
His father,' when they see him from the fight,
From slaughtered foes, with bloody spoils of war
Returning, to rejoice his mother's heart!"

Thus saying, in his mother's arm he placed
The child; she to her fragrant bosom clasped,
Smiling through tears; with eyes of pitying love
Hector beheld, and pressed her hand, and thus
Addressed her, "Dearest, wring not thus my heart!
For till my day of destiny is come

No man may take my life; and when it comes,
Nor brave nor coward can escape that day.
But go thou home, and ply thy household cares,
The loom and distaff, and appoint thy maids
Their several tasks; and leave to men of Troy,
And chief of all to me, the toils of war."

Great Hector said, and raised his plumèd helm;

66

THE GOLDEN SCOPE OF EAGER GAZE."-DERBY'S SCHILLER.

VARIES LIKE THE VARYING SEASON, TOST ON PASSION'S STORMY OCEAN."-DERBY'S SCHILLER.

"MAN, 'MID STORM, AND WRATH, AND STRIFE, BREAKING WITH RESISTLESS FORCE (SCHILLER)

"THE WORLD GROWS OLD, GROWS YOUNG AGAIN,DERBY'S SCHILLER)

THE PARTING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. 161

And homeward, slow, with oft-reverted eyes,
Shedding hot tears, his sorrowing wife returned.
Arrived at valiant Hector's well-built house,
Her maidens pressed around her, and in all
Arose at once the sympathetic grief.

For Hector, yet alive, his household mourned,
Deeming he never would again return

Safe from the fight, by Grecian hands unharmed.

[From the "Iliad," book vi., lines 459-580.-We quote a few lines from Pope's version of this fine passage:

THE

"With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair,
His blameless wife, Aëtion's wealthy heir;
The nurse stood near, in whose embraces prest,
His only hope hung smiling at her breast,
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn.
To this loved infant Hector gave the name
Scamandrius, from Scamander's honoured stream:
Astyanax, the Trojans called the boy,
From his great father, the defence of Troy.
Silent the warrior smiled, and pleased, resigned
To tender passions all his mighty mind:
His beauteous princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom laboured with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye."

"Lord Derby's version," says a critic in Blackwood's Magazine, “admirably preserves all the fine touches by which the model husband and wife of antiquity are set before us in Homer. Many of them are lost to us in the dialogue between Pope's 'beauteous princess' and her 'too daring prince.' But here we have Homer's unrivalled picture of conjugal and parental love in all its noble simplicity."]

BETTER

IS E'ER THE DREAM OF MEN.". -DERBY'S SCHILLER.

ALL THAT BARS HIS HEADLONG COURSE, HURRIES DOWN HIS PATH OF LIFE."-DERBY'S SCHILLER.

"I THINK THAT THERE IS PRIVILEGE IN WOE, AND SORROW MAY NOT SEIZE US EVERYWHERE;-(SYDNEY DOBEll)

"THE YEARS THEY COME, AND THE YEARS THEY GO,-(Dobell)

Sydney Dobell.

[SYDNEY DOBELL is best known to the reading public by his nom de plume of "Sydney Yendys," under which he published his earlier poems of "The Roman" (1850) and "Balder." He is also the author of England in Time of War," and, in conjunction with Alexander Smith, of "Sonnets of the War." He was born at Peckham Rye in 1824. Owing in some measure to his choice of subjects, and partly to his peculiar theory of poetical construction, he has never become popular, but no judicious reader will deny him the possession of the true lyrical faculty. It is true he is a metaphysical poet, of the school of Donne and Cowley; that his versification is often uncouth, and his thought enveloped in a shroud of luminous mist; but he is an original man, and an original poet, with great dramatic instinct and much subtle far-reaching power. His genius is seen at its best in "England in Time of War." As a -poet has said, it is "his homeliest, simplest, and most delightful work."]

THE RUINS OF ANCIENT ROME.

PSTOOD

B

The hoar, unconscious walls, bisson and bare,
Like an old man deaf, blind, and gray, in whom
The years of old stand in the sun, and murmur
Of childhood and the dead. From parapets
Where the sky rests, from broken niches—each
More than Olympus, for gods dwelt in them—
Below from senatorial haunts and seats

Imperial, where the ever-passing fates

Wore out the stone, strange hermit birds croaked forth
Sorrowful sounds, like watchers on the height
Crying the hours of ruin. When the clouds
Dressed every myrtle on the walls in mourning,
With calm prerogative the eternal pile
Impassive shone with the unearthly light
Of immortality. When conquering suns
Triumphed in jubilant earth, it stood out dark

LIKE WINDS THAT BLOW FROM SEA TO SEA."-SYDNEY DOBELL.

AND HAVOC DOTH NOT HUNT WHERE'ER HE LIST; AND SLEEP IS HALCYON TIME WHEN GRIEFS ARE STILL."-DOBell.

"EACH MAN IN HIS TURN, AT CULMINATION OF ONE HAPPY HOUR, SYDNEY DOBELL)

"LOVE MAKES US ALL POETS."-SYDNEY DOBell.

KEITH OF RAVELSTON.

With thoughts of ages; like some mighty captive
Upon his death-bed in a Christian land,
And lying, through the chant of psalm and creed,
Unshriven and stern, with peace upon his brow,
And on his lips strange gods.

Rank weeds and grasses, and asked no leave,

Careless and nodding, grew,

Where Romans trembled. Where the wreck was saddest,
Sweet pensive herbs, that had been gay elsewhere,
With conscious mien of place rose tall and still,
And bent with duty. Like some village children
Who found a dead king on a battle-field,
And with decorous care and reverent pity
Composed the lordly ruin, and sat down
Grave without tears. At length the giant lay,
And everywhere he was begirt with years,
And everywhere the torn and mouldering Past
Hung with the ivy. For Time, smit with honour
Of what he slew, cast his own mantle on him,
That none should mock the dead.

[From "The Roman."]

KEITH OF RAVELSTON.

HE murmur of the mourning ghost

That keeps the shadowy kine;-

O Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

163

Ravelston, Ravelston,
The
merry path that leads
Down the golden morning hill

And through the silver meads.

LOVE HATH HIS CELL IN THE DEEP SECRET HEART.IBID.

CONSUMMATE OF SOME SOLE TOPMOST DAY, HATH HIS APOTHEOSIS."-SYDNEY DOBELL.