Where are my players and my dancing women?
Where are my sweet musicians with their pipes,
That made me merry in the olden time?
I am a laughing stock to man and brute.
The very camels, with their ugly faces,
Mock me and laugh at me.

Philip.

It is not so.

Alas! my Lord,
If thou wouldst sleep awhile,

All would be well.
Ant
Sleep from mine eyes is gone,
And my heart faileth me for very care.
Dost thou remember, Philip, the old fable
Told us when we were boys, in which the bear
Going for honey overturns the hive,
And is stung blind by bees? I am that beast,
Stung by the Persian swarms of Elymais.

Philip. When thou art come again to Antioch
These thoughts will be as covered and forgotten,
As are the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels
In the Egyptian sands.

Ant.

Ah! when I come Again to Antioch! When will that be? Alas! alas!

My Lysias, Gorgias, Seron, and Nicanor,
Are babes in battle, and this dreadful Jew
Will rob me of my kingdom and my crown.
My elephants shall trample him to dust;
I will wipe out his nation, and will make
Jerusalem a common burying-place,
And every home within its walls a tomb!
(Throws up his hands, and sinks into the arms of
attendants, who lay him upon a bank.)
Philip. Antiochus! Antiochus! Alas,
The King is ill! What is it, O my Lord?
Ant. Nothing. A sudden and sharp spasm of
pain,

As if the lightning struck me, or the knife
Of an assassin smote me to the heart.

"T is passed, even as it came.

ward.

Let us set for

I cannot stand. I am become at once
Weak as an infant. Ye will have to lead me.
Jove, or Jehovah, or whatever name
Thou wouldst be named,-it is alike to me,
If I knew how to pray, I would entreat

I am a messenger from Antioch, Sent here by Lysias.

Ant.

A strange foreboding

Of something evil overshadows me.

I am no reader of the Jewish Scriptures;

I know not Hebrew; but my High-Priest Jason,
As I remember, told me of a Prophet
Who saw a little cloud rise from the sea
Like a man's hand, and soon the heaven was
black

With clouds and rain. Here, Philip, read; I cannot;

I see that cloud. It makes the letters dim
Before mine eyes.

Philip (reading.) "To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes."

Ant.

O mockery

Even Lysias laughs at me!-Go on, go on!

Philip.

O my Lord

Thou shalt not die; we will not let thee die! Ant. How canst thou help it, Philip?

pain !

O the

Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield against
This unseen weapon. God of Israel,
Since all the other gods abandon me,
Help me. I will release the Holy City,
Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple.
Thy people, whom I judged to be unworthy
To be so much as buried, shall be equal
Unto the citizens of Antioch.

I will become a Jew, and will declare
Through all the world that is inhabited
The power of God!

Philip. He faints. It is like death.
Bring here the royal litter. We will bear him
Into the camp, while yet he lives.

"Come back, rebellious one!
Let thy proud heart relent;
Come back to my tall, white tent,
Come back, my only son!

"Thy hand in freedom shall

Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.

"I will give thee leave to stray
And pasture thy hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.

"I will give thee my coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid;
Will not all this prevail?"

II.

"THIS hand no longer shall

Cast my hawks, when morning breaks,

On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.

"I will no longer stray
And pasture my hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds

Of the meadows of Karaday.

"Though thou give me thy coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid,
All this cannot prevail.

"What right hast thou, O Khan,

To me, who am mine own,

Who am slave to God alone,

And not to any man?

"God will appoint the day When I again shall be

By the blue, shallow sea,

Where the steel-bright sturgeons play.

"God, who doth care for me,

In the barren wilderness,

On unknown hills, no less
Will my companion be.

"When I wander lonely and lost
In the wind; when I watch at night
Like a hungry wolf, and am white
And covered with hoar-frost;

"Yea, wheresoever I be, In the yellow desert sands,

In mountains or unknown lands, Allah will care for me!"

III.

THEN Sobra, the old, old man,-
Three hundred and sixty years
Had he lived in this land of tears,
Bowed down and said, "O Khan!

"If you bid me, I will speak.
There's no sap in dry grass,
No marrow in dry bones! Alas,
The mind of old men is weak!

"I am old, I am very old :

I have seen the primeval man,
I have seen the great Gengis Khan,
Arrayed in his robes of gold.

"What I say to you is the truth;
And I say to you, O Khan,
Pursue not the star-white man,
Pursue not the beautiful youth.

"Him the Almighty made,
And brought him forth of the light,
At the verge and end of the night,
When men on the mountain played.
"He was born at the break of day,
When abroad the angels walk;
He hath listened to their talk,
And he knoweth what they say.

"Gifted with Allah's grace,
Like the moon of Ramazan

When it shines in the skies, O Khan,
Is the light of his beautiful face.

"When first on earth he trod,
The first words that he said
Were these, as he stood and prayed,
There is no God but God!

"And he shall be king of men, For Allah hath heard his prayer, And the Archangel in the air, Gabriel, hath said, Amen!"

THE SIEGE OF KAZAN. Tartar Song, from the Prose Version of Chodzko.

BLACK are the moors before Kazan,
And their stagnant waters smell of blood:
I said in my heart, with horse and man,
I will swim across this shallow flood.

Under the feet of Argamack,

Like new moons were the shoes he bare, Silken trappings hung on his back,

In a talisman on his neck, a prayer.

My warriors, thought I, are following me;
But when I looked behind, alas!
Not one of all the band could I see,
All had sunk in the black morass!

248

Where are our shallow fords? and where

The power of Kazan with its fourfold gates? From the prison windows our maidens fair

Talk of us still through the iron grates.

We cannot hear them; for horse and man
Lie buried deep in the dark abyss!

Ah! the black day hath come down on Kazan!
Ah! was ever a grief like this?

From Varaca's rocky wall,

From the rock of Varaca unrolled,
The snow came and covered all,
And the green meadow was cold.

O Stork, our garden with snow
Was hidden away and lost,
And the rose-trees that in it grow
Were withered by snow and frost.

THE BOY AND THE BROOK.

CONSOLATION.

sion of Alishan.

Down from yon distant mountain height
The brooklet flows through the village street;
A boy comes forth to wash his hands,
Washing, yes washing, there he stands,
In the water cool and sweet.

Brook, from what mountain dost thou come,
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I come from yon mountain high and cold,
Where lieth the new snow on the old,

And melts in the summer heat.

Brook, to what river dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the river there below
Where in bunches the violets grow,
And sun and shadow meet.

Brook, to what garden dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!

I go to the garden in the vale
Where all night long the nightingale
Her love-song doth repeat.

Brook, to what fountain dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!

I go to the fountain at whose brink

The maid that loves thee comes to drink,
And whenever she looks therein,

I rise to meet her, and kiss her chin,
And my joy is then complete.

TO THE STORK.

vence, on the Death of his Daughter.

Unto these laws must bend;

sion of Alishan.

WELCOME, O Stork! that dost wing
Thy flight from the far-away!

Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring
Thou hast made our sad hearts gay.

Descend, O Stork! descend
Upon our roof to rest;
In our ash-tree, O my friend,
My darling, make thy nest.

To thee, O Stork, I complain,
O Stork, to thee I impart
The thousand sorrows, the pain
And aching of my heart.

When thou away didst go,

Away from this tree of ours, The withering winds did blow, And dried up all the flowers.

Dark grew the brilliant sky,

Cloudy and dark and drear;

They were breaking the snow on high,
And winter was drawing near.

Louvre

Cannot our kings defend.

To murmur against death, in petulant defiance, Is never for the best;

To will what God doth will, that is the only science

That gives us any rest.

TO CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

FROM MALHERBE.

THOU mighty Prince of Church and State,
Richelieu! until the hour of death,
Whatever road man chooses, Fate
Still holds him subject to her breath.
Spun of all silks, our days and nights
Have sorrows woven with delights;
And of this intermingled shade
Our various destiny appears,
Even as one sees the course of years
Of summers and of winters made.

"What, then, shall sorrows and shall fears Come to disturb so pure a brow? And with the bitterness of tears

These eyes of azure troubled grow? "Ah no! into the fields of space, Away shalt thou escape with me; And Providence will grant the grace Of all the days that were to be.

"Let no one in thy dwelling cower, In sombre vestments draped and veiled; But let them welcome thy last hour,

As thy first moments once they hailed. "Without a cloud be there each brow; There let the grave no shadow cast; When one is pure as thou art now, The fairest day is still the last.

And waving wide his wings of white, The angel, at these words, had sped Towards the eternal realms of light!Poor mother! see, thy son is dead!

TO ITALY.

FROM FILICAJA.

ITALY! Italy! thou who 'rt doomed to wear
The fatal gift of beauty, and possess
The dower funest of infinite wretchedness
Written upon thy forehead by despair;
Ah! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair,
That they might fear thee more, or love thee less,
Who in the splendor of thy loveliness
Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare!
Then from the Alps I should not see descending
Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde
Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore,
Nor should I see thee girded with a sword

Not thine, and with the stranger's arm contending,

Victor or vanquished, slave forevermore.

WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONGS.

FROM GOETHE.

I.

THOU that from the heavens art, Every pain and sorrow stillest, And the doubly wretched heart Doubly with refreshment fillest, I am weary with contending! Why this rapture and unrest? Peace descending

Come, ah, come into my breast!
II.

O'er all the hill-tops
Is quiet now,

In all the tree-tops
Hearest thou

Hardly a breath;

The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait; soon like these:
Thou too shalt rest.

REMORSE.

FROM AUGUST VON PLATEN.

How I started up in the night, in the night, Drawn on without rest or reprieval!

249

I.

THE WORKSHOP OF HEPHAESTUS.

MEPHÆSTUS, standing before the statue of Pandora.

Nor fashioned out of Gold, like Hera's throne,
Nor forged of iron like the thunderbolts
Of Zeus omnipotent, or other works
Wrought by my hands at Lemnos or Olympus,
But moulded in soft clay, that unresisting
Yields itself to the touch, this lovely form
Before me stands perfect in every part.
Not Aphrodite's self appeared more fair,
When first upwafted by caressing winds
She came to high Olympus, and the gods
Paid homage to her beauty. Thus her hair
Was cinctured; thus her floating drapery
Was like a cloud about her, and her face
Was radiant with the sunshine and the sea.

THALIA.

sweet, pale face! O lovely eyes of azure,
Clear as the waters of a brook that run
Limpid and laughing in the summer sun!
O golden hair that like a miser's treasure
In its abundance overflows the measure!

O graceful form, that cloudlike floatest on
With the soft, undulating gait of one
Who moveth as if motion were a pleasure!

By what name shall I call thee? Nymph or Muse,
Callirrhoë or Urania? Some sweet name
Whose every syllable is a caress

Would best befit thee; but I cannot choose,
Nor do I care to choose; for still the same,
Nameless or named, will be thy loveliness.

EUPHROSYNE.

Dowered with all celestial gifts, Skilled in every art

That ennobles and uplifts

And delights the heart,

Fair on earth shall be thy fame As thy face is fair,

And Pandora be the name

Thou henceforth shalt bear.

II.

OLYMPUS.

HERMES, pulling on his sandals.

MUCH must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods,
And I, who am their herald, most of all.
No rest have I, nor respite. I no sooner
Unclasp the winged sandals from my feet,
Than I again must clasp them, and depart
Upon some foolish errand. But to-day
The errand is not foolish. Never yet
With greater joy did I obey the summons
That sends me earthward. I will fly so swiftly
That my caduceus in the whistling air
Shall make a sound like the Pandaan pipes,
Cheating the shepherds; for to-day I go,
Commissioned by high-thundering Zeus, to lead
A maiden to Prometheus, in his tower,
And by my cunning arguments persuade him
To marry her. What mischief lies concealed
In this design I know not; but I know
Who thinks of marrying hath already taken
One step upon the road to penitence.
Such embassies delight me. Forth I launch
On the sustaining air, nor fear to fall
Like Icarus, nor swerve aside like him
Who drove amiss Hyperion's fiery steeds.
I sink, I fly! The yielding element
Folds itself round about me like an arm,
And holds me as a mother holds her child.