"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"That put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for,
I could not well make out.
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by ;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly :

So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then
And new-born baby died.

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

"They say it was a shocking sight,
After the field was won,
For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun :

But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Malb'rough won, And our good Prince Eugene ""Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" Said little Wilhelmine

"Nay-nay-my little girl," quoth he, "It was a famous victory!

"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win "-
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.

"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."

From THE CURSE OF KEHAMA.

They sin who tell us Love can die,
With life all other passions fly,

All others are but vanity.

They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible,

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth.
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. [1792-1822

TO THE SKYLARK.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

We "look before and after,"

And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest

thought.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

ΤΟ

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory-
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone-
Love itself shall slumber on.

From THE CLOUD.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noon-day dreams.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain,

...

And laugh as I pass in thunder. .
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder-
It struggles and howls at fits.

That orb-ed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas-
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high-
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I am the daughter of the earth and water,
And the nurseling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores--I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a ghost from the tomb,
I rise and rebuild it again.

JOHN KEATS.

ON

Think not of it, sweet one, so;
Give it not a tear :

Sigh thou mayest, and bid it go,
Any-any where.

Do not look so sad, sweet one-
Sad and fadingly:

Shed one drop, then-it is gone—
Oh! 'twas born to die!

Still so pale? then, dearest, weep!
Weep, I'll count the tears;
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes.

Than a sunny

rill;

And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.

1796-1849] HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

SONG.

She is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be,

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

O! then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply;
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye;

Her very frowns are fairer far,

Than smiles of other maidens are.