My wants are many, and, if told, What first I want is daily bread Four courses scarcely can provide With four choice cooks from France beside To dress my dinner well. What next I want at princely cost, Black sable furs for winter's frost, My bosom's front to deck, And diamond rings my hands to grace, And rubies for my neck. I want (who does not want) a wife- To solace all the woes of life, And as Time's car incessant runs, I want a warm and faithful friend, And that my friendship prove as strong For him as his for me. I want the seals of power and place, To rule my native land. TO GEORGE PEABODY. BANKRUPT - our pockets inside out! Empty of words to speak his praises! Worcester and Webster up the spout! Dead broke of laudatory phrases! But why with flowery speeches tease, With vain superlatives distress him? Has language better words than these? The friend of all his race, God bless him! A simple prayer - but words more sweet By human lips were never uttered, Since Adam left the country seat Where angel wings around him fluttered. The old look on with tear-dimmed eyes, The children cluster to caress him, And every voice unbidden cries, The friend of all his race, God bless him! O. W. HOLMES. A KING. A KING lived long ago, In the morning of the world, When Earth was nigher Heaven than now: And the King's locks curled Disparting o'er a forehead full As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn Of some sacrificial bull. Only calm as a babe new-born: For he was got to a sleepy mood, So safe from all decrepitude, Age with its bane so sure gone by, (The gods so loved him while he dreamed,} That, having lived thus long, there seemed No need the King should ever die. Among the rocks his city was; Before his palace, in the sun, He sat to see his people pass, And judge them every one From its threshold of smooth stone. ROBERT BROWNING. THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn. For the Angel of Death spread his wing on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still. And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rockbeating surf. And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the tempie of Baal; And the might of the Gentue, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! BYRON. CLEOPATRA. THE barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumèd, that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion, (cloth-of-gold, of tissue,) O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see, The fancy out-work nature: on each side her, Stood pretty boys, like smiling Cupids, With diverse-colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool And what they undid, did. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, And made their bends adornings: at the helm A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackles Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antony, Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in nature. SHAKSPEARE. THE GLADIATOR. I SEE before me the gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand; - his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him- he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not, his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away; He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother, he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday; All this rushed with his blood;Shall he expire, And unavenged?- Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire! BYRON. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. I MADE a footing in the wall, Who loved me in a human shape; And the whole earth would henceforth be A wider prison unto me: But I was curious to ascend I saw them and they were the same; They were not changed like me in frame; THE Convent-bells are ringing, Or the living, who shortly shall be For a departing being's soul He is near his mortal goal; And the headsman with his bare arm ready, That the blow may be both swift and steady, Feels if the axe be sharp and trueSince he set its edge anew: While the crowd in a speechless circle gather, To see the son fall by the doom of the father. It is a lovely hour as yet He bends to hear his accents bless He died, as erring man should die, Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, Strike your tents, and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, That the fugitive may flee in vain, When he breaks from the town; and none escape, Aged or young, in the Christian shape; While your fellows on foot, in fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they pass. The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein; Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane; White is the foam of their champ on the bit: The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit; The cannon are pointed and ready to roar, And crush the wall they have crum bled before: Forms in his phalanx each Janizar; Alp at their head; his right arm is bare, So is the blade of his scimitar; The Khan and his pachas are all at their post: The vizier himself at the head of the host. When the culverin's signal is fired, then On! Leave not in Corinth a living oneA priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls. God and the prophet - Alla Hu! Up to the skies with that wild halloo! "There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale; And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail? He who first downs with the red cross may crave His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!" Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier; The reply was the brandish of sabre After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him! No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: |