In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, Whose heritage was misery: For he who hath in turn run through All that was beautiful and new, Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; And, save the future, (which is view'd Not quite as men are base or good, But as their nerves may be endued,) With nought perhaps to grieve: The wretch still hopes his woes must end, Arrived to rob him of his prize, XVIII. "The sun was sinking—still I lay I thought to mingle there our clay; I cast my last looks up the sky, And there between me and the sun I saw the expecting raven fly, Who scarce would wait till both should die, Ere his repast begun; He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more, And each time nearer than before; I saw his wing through twilight flit, I could have smote, but lack'd the strength; But the slight motion of my hand, And feeble scratching of the sand, And then subsiding back to death, A little thrill, a short suspense, An icy sickness curdling o'er My heart, and sparks that cross'd my brain A gasp, a throb, a start of pain, A sigh, and nothing more. XIX. "I woke where was I?-Do I see And doth a roof above me close? I closed my own again once more, A prying, pitying glance on me I gazed, and gazed, until I knew But that I lived, and was released And gently oped the door, and spake But those she call'd were not awake, And she went forth; but, ere she pass'd, Another look on me she cast, Another sign she made, to say, Her due return :—while she was gone, XX. "She came with mother and with sire— What need of more ?-I will not tire With long recital of the rest, Since I became the Cossack's guest. Thus the vain fool who strove to glut His rage, refining on my pain, Sent me forth to the wilderness, May see our coursers graze at ease As I shall yield when safely there.3 A bed nor comfortless nor new To him, who took his rest whene'er The hour arrived, no matter where : His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. To thank his tale, he wonder'd not, The king had been an hour asleep. 5 ["Charles, having perceived that the day was lost, fled to a place called Perewolochna, situated in the angle formed by the junction of the Vorskla and the Borysthenes. Here, accompanied by Mazeppa, and a few hundreds of his followers, Charles swam over the latter great river, and at length reached the Bog, where he was kindly received by the Turkish pacha. The Russian envoy at the Sublime Porte demanded that Mazeppa should be delivered up to Peter, but the old Hetman of the Cossacks escaped this fate by taking a disease which hastened his death."-BArrow's Peter the Great, pp. 196-203.] |