And from the silvery sea To them the sailor's wakeful eye is turning Unchanged they rise, they have not mourned for thee. Couldst thou be shaken from thy radiant place, Even as the dew-drop from the myrtle spray, Swept by the wind away? Wert thou not peopled by some glorious race, And was there power to smite them with decay? Why, who shall talk of thrones, of sceptres riven? Bowed be our hearts to think on what we are, When from its height afar A world sinks thus-and yon majestic heaven Shines not the less for that one van ished star! -Felicia Hemans. 7 THE DESTRUCTION OF T SENNACHERIB HE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleam ing in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Like the leaves of the forest when sum- 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 strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings 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 rock-beating 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 uplifted, the trumpet unblown. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal: And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. -Lord Byron. THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE T CRICKET HE poetry of earth is never dead; When all the birds are faint with the hot sun And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the newmown mead. That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights; for, when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never. On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems, to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy -John Keats. hills. The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new; Ring out the grief that saps the mind, Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the love of truth and right, |