"And while my youthful peers before my eyes
(Each hero following his peculiar bent)
Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise
- or, seated in the tent,

By martial sports,

Chieftains and kings in council were detained;

What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

"The wished-for wind was given: I then revolved The oracle, upon the silent sea;

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And, if no worthier led the way, resolved

That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be
The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,
Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

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"Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang
When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife!
On thee too fondly did my memory hang,
And on the joys we shared in mortal life,

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The paths which we had trod - these fountains, flowers,
My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers..

"But should suspense permit the Foe to cry,
Behold they tremble! - haughty their array,
Yet of their number no one dares to die?'
In soul I swept the indignity away:

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Old frailties then recurred:
:-

but lofty thought,

In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

“And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak

In reason, in self-government too slow;

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I counsel thee by fortitude to seek

Our blest re-union in the shades below.

The invisible world with thee hath sympathised;

Be thy affections raised and solemnised.

"Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend
Seeking a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;
For this the passion to excess was driven

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That self might be annulled: her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.".

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Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears!

Round the dear Shade she would have clung - 'tis vain:

The hours are past too brief had they been years;

And him no mortal effort can detain:

Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day,
He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse she lay.

Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved,
She perished; and, as for a wilful crime,
By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved,
Was doomed to wear out her appointed time,
Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.

- Yet tears to human suffering are due;

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And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are inourned by man, and not by man alone,

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As fondly he believes. — Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knc: of spiry trees for ages grew

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From cut the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight!

ODE.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM-RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY

CHILDHOOD.

I.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

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It is not now as it hath been of yore;

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II.

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare,

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief;
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 35

Shepherd-boy!

IV.

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel — I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen

While Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

- But there's a Tree, of many one,

-

A single Field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V.

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Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

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But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

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He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

VI.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII.

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Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his Mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his Father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learnéd art;
A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part;

humorous stage "

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Filling from time to time his
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,