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XI.

POETRY OF TERROR.

"There are points from which we can command our life, When the soul sweeps the Future like a glass,

And coming things full freighted with our fate

Jut out dark on the offing of the mind."- BAILEY: Festus.

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SONG OF THE PARCE.

IPHIGENIA.

WITHIN my ears resounds that ancient song,

Forgotten was it, and forgotten gladly,

Song of the Parcæ, which they shuddering sang,

When Tantalus fell from his golden seat.

They suffered with their noble friend; indignant

Their bosom was, and terrible their

song.

To me and to my sisters, in our youth, The nurse would sing it; and I marked it well.

"The Gods be your terror,

Ye children of men!

They hold the dominion

In hands everlasting,

All free to exert it
As listeth their will.

"Let him fear them doubly
Whome'er they've exalted!
On crags and on cloud-piles
The couches are planted
Around the gold tables.

"Dissension arises;
Then tumble the feasters,
Reviled and dishonored,
In gulfs of deep midnight;
And look ever vainly
In fetters of darkness
For judgment that's just.

"But they remain seated
At feasts never failing
Around the gold tables.
They stride at a footstep
From mountain to mountain;
Through jaws of abysses

Steams towards them the breathing
Of suffocate Titans,

Like offerings of incense,

A light-rising vapor.

"They turn

the proud masters

From whole generations
The eye of their blessing;
Nor will in the children,
The once well-beloved,
Still eloquent features
Of ancestor see."

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And was embarked to cross to Burgundy;

And in my company, my brother Gloster:

Who from nry cabin, tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,

And cited up a thousand heavy times,

During the wars of York and Lan

caster

That had befallen us. As we paced along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,

Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,

Into the tumbling billows of the main. O heaven! methought what pain it was to drown!

What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!

What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;

A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the

sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept

(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,

That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.

Brak. - Had you such leisure in the time of death

To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought I had: and

often did I strive

To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood

Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth

To seek the empty, vast, and wandering air;

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