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Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

P. B. Shelley.

LIX.

THE PLAIN OF MARATHON.

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(FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE,' CANTO II.)

HERE'ER we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground;
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,

But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon :
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold
Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone;
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same;
Unchanged in all except its foreign lord—
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame
The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword,
As on the morn to distant glory dear,
When Marathon became a magic word;
Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear

The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career,

108

Gathering Song of Donald the Black.

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below;
Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!
Such was the scene-what now remaineth here?
What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground,
Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?
The rifled urn, the violated mound,

The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around.

Byron.

LX.

GATHERING SONG OF DONALD THE BLACK.

IBROCH of Donuil Dhu,

Pibroch of Donuil,

Wake thy wild voice anew,
Summon Clan Conuil.

Come away, come away,

Hark to the summons !

Come in your war-array,

Gentles and commons.

Come from deep glen, and

From mountain so rocky;

The war-pipe and pennon
Are at Inverlochy.

Come every hill-plaid, and

True heart that wears one,

Come every steel blade, and
Strong hand that bears one.

Leave untended the herd,

The flock without shelter;

Leave the corpse uninterred,
The bride at the altar;

Leave the deer, leave the steer,
Leave nets and barges;

Come with your fighting gear,
Broadswords and targes.

Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended,

Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded :

Faster come, faster come,

Faster and faster,

Chief, vassal, page and groom,
Tenant and master.

Fast they come, fast they come ;
See how they gather !
Wide waves the eagle plume

Blended with heather.

Cast your plaids, draw your blades,

Forward each man set!

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu

Knell for the onset !

W. Scott.

LXI.

TO CYRIACK SKINNER.

YRIACK! this three years' day these eyes, though

clear

To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer

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F comfort ne man speak:

Let's ak of graves, of worms and epi-
taphs:

Mike dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our Eves and all are Bolingbroke's
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And teil sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been deposed; some slain in war ;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed:*
Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed ;
All murdered: for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,

Ghosts they have deposed. Ghosts of those whom they have deposed.

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchise, be feared and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable, and humoured thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

W. Shakespeare.

LXIII.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

SAY to thee, do thou repeat
To the first man thou mayest meet
In lane, highway, or open street-

That he and we and all men move
Under a canopy of love,

As broad as the blue sky above;

That doubt and trouble, fear and pain
And anguish, all are shadows vain,
That death itself shall not remain ;

That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread,
Through dark ways underground be led ;

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