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--Arthur Christoher Benson
A ROMAN MIRROR
They found it in her hollow marble bed, There where the numberless dead cities sleep, They found it lying where the spade struck deep A broken mirror by a maiden dead.
These things--the beads she wore about her throat, Alternate blue and amber, all untied, A lamp to light her way, and on one side The toll men pay to that strange ferry-boat.
No trace today of what in her was fair!
Only the record of long years grown green Upon the mirror's l.u.s.treless dead sheen, Grown dim at last, when all else withered there
Dead, broken, l.u.s.treless! It keeps for me One picture of that immemorial land, For oft as I have held thee in my hand The chill bronze brightens, and I dream to see
A fair face gazing in thee wondering wise And o'er one marble shoulder all the while Strange lips that whisper till her own lips smile And all the mirror laughs about her eyes.
It was well thought to set thee there, so she Might smooth the windy ripples of her hair And knot their tangled waywardness or ere She stood before the queen Persephone.
And still it may be where the dead folk rest She holds a shadowy mirror to her eyes, And looks upon the changelessness, and sighs And sets the dead land lilies in her hand.
--Rennell Rodd
THE DOOM OF THE SLOTHFUL
When through the dolorous city of d.a.m.ned souls The Florentine with Vergil took his way, A dismal marsh they pa.s.sed, whose fetid shoals Held sinners by the myriad. Swollen and grey, Like worms that fester in the foul decay Of sweltering carrion, these bad spirits sank Chin-deep in stagnant slime and ooze that stank.
Year after year forever--year by year, Through billions of the centuries that lie Like specks of dust upon the dateless sphere Of heaven's eternity, they cankering sigh Between the black waves and the starless sky; And daily dying have no hope to gain By death or change or respite of their pain.
What was their crime, you ask? Nay, listen: "We Were sullen--sad what time we drank the light, And delicate air, that all day daintily Is cheered by suns.h.i.+ne; for we bore black night And murky smoke of sloth, in G.o.d's despite, Within our barren souls, by discontent From joy of all fair things and wholesome pent:
Therefore in this low h.e.l.l from jocund sight And sound He bans us; and as there we grew Pallid with idleness, so here a blight Perpetual rots with slow-corroding dew Our poisonous carcase, and a livid hue Corpse-like o'erspreads these sodden limbs that take And yield corruption to the loathly lake."
--John Addington Symonds
HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE
_Andromache_
Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain, Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain, Stalks Peleus' ruthless son?
Who, when thou glid'st amid the dark abodes, To hurl the spear and to revere the G.o.ds, Shall teach thine Orphan One?
_Hector_
Woman and wife beloved--cease thy tears; My soul is nerved--the war-clang in my ears!
Be mine in life to stand Troy's bulwark!--fighting for our hearths, to go In death, exulting to the streams below, Slain for my father-land!
_Andromache_
No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall-- Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall-- Fallen the stem of Troy!
Thou go'st where slow Cocytus wanders--where Love sinks in Lethe, and the sunless air Is dark to light and joy!
_Hector_
Longing and thought--yea, all I feel and think May in the silent sloth of Lethe sink, But my love not!
Hark, the wild swarm is at the walls! I hear!
Gird on my sword--Belov'd one, dry the tear-- Lethe for love is not!
--Schiller
ENCELADUS
Under Mount Etna he lies, It is slumber, it is not death; For he struggles at times to arise, And above him the lurid skies Are hot with his fiery breath.
The crags are piled on his breast, The earth is heaped on his head; But the groans of his wild unrest, Though smothered and half suppressed, Are heard, and he is not dead.
And the nations far away Are watching with eager eyes; They talk together and say, "Tomorrow, perhaps today, Enceladus will arise!"
And the old G.o.ds, the austere Oppressors in their strength, Stand aghast and white with fear At the ominous sounds they hear, And tremble, and mutter, "At length!"
Ah me! for the land that is sown With the harvest of despair!
Where the burning cinders, blown From the lips of the overthrown Enceladus, fill the air.
Where ashes are heaped in drifts Over vineyard and field and town, Whenever he starts and lifts His head through the blackened rifts Of the crags that keep him down.
See, see! the red light s.h.i.+nes!
'Tis the glare of his awful eyes!
And the storm-wind shouts through the pines, Of Alps and of Apennines, "Enceladus, arise!"
--Henry W. Longfellow
NIL ADMIRARI
When Horace in Venusian groves Was scribbling wit or sipping "Ma.s.sic,"
Or singing those delicious loves Which after ages reckon cla.s.sic, He wrote one day--'twas no vagary-- These famous words:--_Nil admirari!_
"Wonder at nothing!" said the bard; A kingdom's fall, a nation's rising, A lucky or a losing card, Are really not at all surprising; However men or manners vary, Keep cool and calm: _Nil admirari!_
If kindness meet a cold return; If friends.h.i.+p prove a dear delusion; If love, neglected, cease to burn, Or die untimely of profusion,-- Such lessons well may make us wary, But needn't shock: _Nil admirari!_
Ah! when the happy day we reach When promisers are ne'er deceivers; When parsons practice what they preach, And seeming saints are all believers, Then the old maxim you may vary, And say no more, _Nil admirari!_
--John G. Saxe
PERDIDI DIEM
