FEAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote The power of the night, the press of the storm, Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And made me creep past. THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 93 No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements rage, the fiend voices that rave Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy, Then a light, then thy breast, O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest! Robert Browning. THE LADY OF THE LAKE. (CORONACH.) He is gone on the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a summer-dried fountain When our need was the sorest. 94 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. The font, re-appearing, From the rain-drops shall borrow, To Duncan no morrow! The hand of the reaper Takes the ears that are hoary, Waft the leaves that are searest, Fleet foot on the correi, Sage counsel in cumber, How sound is thy slumber! Like the bubble on the fountain, Sir Walter Scott. FULL of long-sounding corridors it was, Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, From living Nature, fit for every mood For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer morn, Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn. 96 THE PALACE OF ART. One seem'd all dark and red-a tract of sand, Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, One show'd an iron coast and angry waves, And one, a full-fed river winding slow The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, Behind And one the reapers at their sultry toil. And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond, a line of heights, and higher All barred with long white cloud the scornful crags, And highest, snow and fire. |