and they

"The Gods to us are merciful

Yet further may relent: for mightier far

Than strength of nerve and sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,

Is love, though oft to agony distrest,

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And though his favourite seat be feeble woman's breast. 90

ee

But if thou goest, I follow

""Peace!" he said,

-

She looked upon him and was calmed and cheered;

The ghastly colour from his lips had fled;

In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,

Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel
In worlds whose course is equable and pure ;
No fears to beat away – no strife to heal -
The past unsighed for, and the future sure;
Spake of heroic arts in graver mood
Revived, with finer harmony pursued ;

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Of all that is most beauteous

imaged there

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In happier beauty; more pellucid streams,

An ampler ether, a diviner air,

And fields invested with purpureal gleams;

Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day
Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.

Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned

That privilege by virtue. —" Ill,” said he,

ee

The end of man's existence I discerned,

Who from ignoble games and revelry

Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight,

While tears were thy best pastime, day and night;

And while my youthful peers before my eyes (Each hero following his peculiar bent)

Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise

By martial sports,

or, seated in the tent,

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Chieftains and kings in council were detained;

What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

ee

'The wished-for wind was given : I then revolved The oracle, upon the silent sea;

That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be

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And, if no worthier led the way, resolved

The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,

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Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

"Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife! On thee too fondly did my memory hang,

And on the joys we shared in mortal life,

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The paths which we had trod - these fountains, flowers, My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers.

"But should suspense permit the Foe to cry,
'Behold they tremble! - haughty their array,

Yet of their number no one dares to die'?

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In soul I swept the indignity away:

Old frailties then recurred: - but lofty thought,
In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

ee

And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government too slow;

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I counsel thee by fortitude to seek

Our blest re-union in the shades below.

The invisible world with thee hath sympathised;

Be thy affections raised and solemnised.

"Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend
Seeking a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;
For this the passion to excess was driven
That self might be annulled: her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears!

Round the dear Shade she would have clung-'tis vain :

The hours are past - too brief had they been years;

And him no mortal effort can detain :

Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day,
He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse She lay.

Thus all in vain exhorted and reproved,
She perished; and, as for a wilful crime,
By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved,
Was doomed to wear out her appointed time,
Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.

Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes. - Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,

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160

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The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight!1

YARROW VISITED.

SEPTEMBER, 1814.

(See page 181.)

AND is this - Yarrow? This the Stream
Of which my fancy cherished,

So faithfully, a waking dream?

An image that hath perished!

O that some Minstrel's harp were near,

To utter notes of gladness,

And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!

1814.

With uncontrolled meanderings;

Nor have these eyes by greener hills

Been soothed, in all my wanderings.

And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake

Is visibly delighted;

For not a feature of those hills

Is in the mirror slighted.

5

IO

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1 For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. xvi. cap. 44; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus, see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Virgil places the Shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy Lovers,

A blue sky bends o'er Yarrow vale,
Save where that pearly whiteness
Is round the rising sun diffused,
A tender hazy brightness;

Mild dawn of promise! that excludes
All profitless dejection;

Though not unwilling here to admit

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A pensive recollection.

Where was it that the famous Flower

Of Yarrow Vale lay bleeding?

His bed perchance was yon smooth mound
On which the herd is feeding :

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