LIBERTY.

YE clouds! that far above me float and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal may control!
Ye ocean-waves! that wheresoe'er ye roll
Yield homage only to eternal laws!

Ye woods! that listen to the night-bird's singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,
Save when your own imperious branches, swinging,
Have made a solemn music of the wind!
Where, like a man beloved of God,

Through glooms which never woodman trod,
How oft, pursuing fancies holy,

My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,
Inspired beyond the guess of folly,

By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! ye loud waves! and O ye forests high!

And O ye clouds that far above me soar'd! Thou rising sun! thou blue rejoicing sky! Yea, everything that is, and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er you be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.

Coleridge.

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

ALL the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;

And then, the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail

SOLITUDE.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold

Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tired denizen,

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all the flatter'd, followed, sought, and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

Byron.

THE HISTORY OF A LIFE.

DAY dawned-Within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,

A lady lay at point of doom.

Day closed:-A child had seen the light;

But for the lady, fair and bright,

She rested in undreaming night.

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS.

Spring rose-The lady's grave was green;
And near it oftentimes was seen

A gentle boy, with thoughtful mien.

Years fled :-He wore a manly face,
And struggled in the world's rough race,
And won, at last, a lofty place.

And then he died! Behold, before ye,
Humanity's poor sum and story;
Life-death-and all that is of glory.

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Procter.

THE LAY OF THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE

REGILLUS.

I.

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note!
Ho, lictors, clear the way!

The knights will ride, in all their pride,
Along the streets to-day.
To-day the doors and windows
Are hung with garlands all,
From Castor in the Forum,
To Mars without the wall.
Each knight is robed in purple,
With olive each is crown'd;
A gallant war-horse under each
Paws haughtily the ground.
While flows the Yellow River,
While stands the Sacred Hill,
The proud Ides of Quintilis

Shall have such honour still.
Gay are the Martian Kalends;
December's Nones are gay;

But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides,
Shall be Rome's whitest day.

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BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS.

11.

Unto the Great Twin Brethren
We keep this solemn feast.
Swift, swift the Great Twin Brethren
Came spurring from the east.
They came o'er wild Parthenius,
Tossing in waves of pine,

O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam,
O'er purple Apennine,

From where with flutes and dances

Their ancient mansion rings,

In lordly Lacedæmon,

The city of two kings,
To where, by Lake Regillus
Under the Porcian height,
All in the lands of Tusculum,
Was fought the glorious fight.

III.

Now on the place of slaughter

Are cots and sheep-folds seen,
And rows of vines, and fields of wheat,
And apple-orchards green:
The swine crush the big acorns

That fall from Corne's oaks.
Upon the turf, by the fair fount,

The reaper's pottage smokes.

The fisher baits his angle;

The hunter twangs his bow:
Little they think on those strong limbs

That moulder deep below:
Little they think how sternly

That day the trumpets pealed;

How in the slippery swamp of blood
Warrior and war-horse reel'd;

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS.

How wolves came with fierce gallop
And crows on eager wings,
To tear the flesh of captains,

And peck the eyes of kings:
How thick the dead lay scatter'd
Under the Porcian height;
How through the gates of Tusculum
Raved the wild stream of flight;
And how the Lake Regillus

Bubbled with crimson foam,

What time the thirty cities

Came forth to war with Rome.

IV.

But, Roman, when thou standest
Upon that holy ground,

Look thou with heed on the dark rock
That girds the dark lake round.
So shalt thou see a hoof-mark
Stamp'd deep into the flint;
It was no hoof of mortal steed
That made so strange a dint;
There to the Great Twin Brethren
Vow thou thy vows, and pray
That they, in tempest and in flight,
Will keep thy head alway.

V.

Since last the Great Twin Brethren

Of mortal eyes were seen, Have years gone by an hundred

And fourscore and thirteen,

That summer a Virginius

Was consul first in place; The second was stout Aulus,

Of the Posthumian race.

The herald of the Latines

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