III.

MYTHICAL: MYSTICAL: LEGENDARY.

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river?

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep, cool bed of the river,
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river,

And hacked and hewed as a great god can
With his hard, bleak steel at the patient reed,

Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith like the heart of a man,

86

Steadily from the outside ring,

Then notched the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sate by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, (Laughed while he sate by the river!)

"The only way since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed." Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan,
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh, as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man.

The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain,For the reed that grows nevermore again

As a reed with the reeds of the river.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

A TRANSFORMATION.

FROM "THE METAMORPHOSES."

WEARY and travel-worn,-her lips unwet
With water, at a straw-thatched cottage door
The wanderer knocked. An ancient crone came

forth

And saw her need, and hospitable brought

Her bowl of barley-broth, and bade her drink.
Thankful she raised it; but a graceless boy

And impudent stood by, and, ere the half

Was drained, "Ha! ha! see how the glutton swills!"

With insolent jeer he cried. The goddess's ire
Was roused; and as he spoke, what liquor yet
The bowl retained, full in his face she dashed.
His cheeks broke out in blotches; what were arms
Turned legs, and from the shortened trunk a tail
Tapered behind. Small mischief evermore
Might that small body work: the lizard's self
Was larger now than he. With terror shrieked
The crone, and weeping, stooped her altered child
To raise; the little monster fled her grasp
And wriggled into hiding. Still his name
His nature tells, and, from the star-light spots.
That mark him, known as Stellio, crawls the Newt.

From the Latin of OVID. Translation of HENRY KING.

THE COMET.

OCTOBER, 1858.

ERRATIC Soul of some great Purpose, doomed

To track the wild illimitable space,

Till sure propitiation has been made.

For the divine commission unperformed!

What was thy crime? Ahasuerus' curse

Were not more stern on earth than thine in heaven!

Art thou the Spirit of some Angel World, For grave rebellion banished from thy peers, Compelled to watch the calm, immortal stars.

Circling in rapture the celestial void,
While the avenger follows in thy train
To spur thee on to wretchedness eterne?

Or one of Nature's wildest fantasies, From which she flies in terror so profound, And with such whirl of torment in her breast, That mighty earthquakes yawn where'er she treads; While War makes red its terrible right hand, And Famine stalks abroad all lean and wan?

To us thou art as exquisitely fair

As the ideal visions of the seer,

Or gentlest fancy that e'er floated down.
Imagination's bright, unruffled stream,

Wedding the thought that was too deep for words
To the low breathings of inspired song.

When the stars sang together o'er the birth
Of the poor Babe at Bethlehem, that lay
In the coarse manger at the crowded Inn,
Didst thou, perhaps a bright exalted star,
Refuse to swell the grand, harmonious lay,
Jealous as Herod of the birth divine?

Or when the crown of thorns on Calvary
Pierced the Redeemer's brow, didst thou disdain
To weep, when all the planetary worlds
Were blinded by the fulness of their tears?
E'en to the flaming sun, that hid his face

At the loud cry, "Lama Sabachthani!"

No rest! No rest! the very damned have that In the dark councils of remotest Hell,

Where the dread scheme was perfected that sealed

Thy disobedience and accruing doom.
Like Adam's sons, hast thou, too, forfeited
The blest repose that never pillowed Sin?

No! none can tell thy fate, thou wandering
Sphinx!

Pale Science, searching by the midnight lamp
Through the vexed mazes of the human brain,
Still fails to read the secret of its soul

As the superb enigma flashes by,

A loosed Prometheus burning with disdain.

CHARLES SANGSTER.

THE BALLAD OF JUDAS ISCARIOT.

"T WAS the body of Judas Iscariot

Lay in the Field of Blood;
"T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Beside the body stood.

Black was the earth by night,

And black was the sky;

Black, black were the broken clouds,
Tho' the red Moon went by.

'T was the body of Judas Iscariot
Strangled and dead lay there;
'Twas the soul of Judas Iscariot
Looked on it in despair.

The breath of the World came and went
Like a sick man's in rest;

Drop by drop on the World's eyes

The dews fell cool and blest.