That still, whenever any breeze did blow,
Waved shadowy like the falling of the sea;
And gazing thence upon the moonlit plain,
The voiceful silence of the saddening scene
Called up a city's phantom to my brain,
And caused me muse of what Troy once had been. How doth the memory of heroic deeds,
Wrought by the heroes of the elder time, Clothe o'er thy site more than the mantling weeds, And round thy brows a deathless laurel twine. Just as those fires which lit the midnight sky, Changing so many watchful tears to smiles, Wafted to Hellas the exultant cry,
“Troja is fallen," o'er the Grecian isles; So doth thy story, mid the rocks of time,
Echo along the unending cycles through, Pealing thy name in most melodious chime,
Ne'er growing fainter, nor its notes more few. All to the magic of that world-sung song,
That god-breathed legend dost thou owe thy fame; The golden weft the blind man wove so long, Hath linked to immortality thy name.
His tale to many another's lyre hath given
Its stirring echoes; and in every age
What story more than of thy woes hath riven
Their hearts who dream upon the poet's page.
And though for long thou in the dust hast lain,
Still, still the visions of the mighty past,
The memory of thy struggle, and thy pain,
Thy god-built turrets, — these forever last.
Yet still 'twixt thee and Tenedos there pours
Just as of old the trough of angry sea,
And on the oozy sand still breaks and roars,
As when the black keels lined the yellow lea.
And still the pines of Ida wave aloft
Their tuneful, scented, dove-embowering shade;
And 'neath them twilight broods as gray and soft
As when of yore the shepherd Paris strayed With glad Enone; while their bleating flocks
Grazed the wild thyme bright with ambrosial dew; And lovers piping 'neath the o'ershadowing rocks Laded with love the breezes as they flew. Still Simois wanders mid his voiceful reeds,
And Xanthus rolls his slender length along,
Telling the story of thy mighty deeds,
In lagging accents of a tearful song.
All these, O Troy, thy streams and woody hill,
Thy barren beach whereon the long ships lay,
Thy famous isle, - the invaders haunt, are still;
But Priam's Ilion hath passed away.
Hath passed, I said; thy memory ne'er can fade!
The muse hath won thee from the dead again;
A golden glory crowns for aye thy shade;
Thou livest, O Troy, forever unto men!
THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
YO on he fares, and to the border comes
delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar and pine and fir and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighboring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Some high, some low; the painter was so nice,
The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
To jump up higher seem'd to mock the mind.
Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head,
His nose being shadow'd by his neighbour's ear;
Here one, being throng'd, bears back, all boll'n and red;
Another, smother'd, seems to pelt and swear;
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear,
As, but for loss of Nestor's golden words,
It seem'd they would debate with angry swords.
For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles' image stood his spear,
Griped in an armed hand; himself, behind,
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind:
A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imagined.
And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy
When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to field,
Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;
And to their hope they such odd action yield,
That, through their light joy, seemed to appear
(Like bright things stain'd) a kind of heavy fear.
And, from the strond of Dardan where they fought,
To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran, Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges; and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore, and then
Retire again, till meeting greater ranks
They join, and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.
William Shakespeare.
CASSANDRA.
JOY in Troja's courts abounded
Ere the lofty ramparts fell;
Hymns of jubilee resounded
From the golden-chorded shell.
Now from fields of strife and slaughter
Rests at peace each valiant head,
While to Priam's fairest daughter
Peleus' godlike son must wed.
There, bedecked with boughs of laurel,
Where the columned fanes extend,
Troop on troop, in bright apparel,
To the Thymbrian's altar bend.
Through the streets the Bacchic madness
Rushing comes with hollow swell,
And on thoughts of silent sadness
One alone is left to dwell.
Joyless most where joy exceeded,
Did Cassandra's footsteps rove,
Lonely, desolate, unheeded,
Through Apollo's laurel grove.
Mid the forest depths slow winding
Wandered the prophetic maid,
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