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Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze from the sand-hills
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side-
And then come back, down.
Singing, "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she:

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

37.

The Hag.

THE Hag is astride,

This night for to ride,

The devil and she together;

Through thick and through thin,

Now out, and then in,

M. ARNOLD.

Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a bur

She takes for a spur;

With a lash of a bramble she rides now,
Through brakes and through briars,
O'er ditches and mires,

She follows the spirit that guides now.

No beast, for his food,

Dares now range the wood,

But hushed in his lair he lies lurking;
While mischiefs, by these,

On land and on seas,

At noon of night are a-working.

The storm will arise,

And trouble the skies

This night; and, more for the wonder,

The ghost from the tomb

Affrighted shall come,

Called out by the clap of the thunder.

R. HERRICK.

38.

Incantation.

WHEN the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,

And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answered owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine,

With a power and with a sign.

Though thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades which will not vanish, There are thoughts thou canst not banish; By a power to thee unknown,

Thou canst never be alone;

Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,

Thou art gathered in a cloud;
And for ever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.

Though thou seest me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye
As a thing that, though unseen,
May be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turned around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel
Shalt be what thou must conceal.

And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse;
And a spirit of the air

Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall Night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun,
Which shall make thee wish it done.

From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatched the snake,
For there it coiled as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
In proving every poison known,

I found the strongest was thine own.

By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathomed gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul's hypocrisy ;
By the perfection of thine art,

Which passed for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others' pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!

And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny;

Though thy death shall still seem near

To thy wish, but as a fear;

Lo! the spell now works around thee,

And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
O'er thy heart and brain together

Hath the word been passed-now wither!

39.

LORD BYRON.

Fragment: A Soul Known.

I AM as a spirit who has dwelt

Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt

His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone
Unheard but in the silence of his blood,
When all the pulses in their multitude
Image the trembling calm of summer seas.
I have unlocked the golden melodies

as deep soul, as with a master-key,
sened them and bathed myself therein—
ar eagle in a thunder-mist

his wings with lightning.

40.

P. B. SHELLEY.

Song of the Corsairs.

be whose heart hath tried, cer the waters wide,

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town vaken and its spirit soar?

treat of death-if with us die out foesthat seems even duller than repose: when it will we snatch the life of eV-what recks it-by disease or strife? Ahi who crawls enamoured of decay, ting his couch, and sicken years away; 16 his thick breath, and shake his palsied head; Ourse the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed. he gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Curs with one pang-one bound-escapes control. 11:5 corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave: Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead. For us, even banquets fond regret supply In the red cup that crowns our memory; And the brief epitaph in danger's day, When those who win at length divide the prey, I cry, remembrance saddening o'er each brow, w had the brave who fell exulted now!"

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LORD BYRON.

EN, with a gliding motion like a flame
through dim vapour makes a path of glory,

A figure lithe, all white and saffron-robed,
Flashed right across the circle, and now stood
With ripened arms uplift and regal head,

Like some tall flower whose dark and intense heart
Lies half within a tulip-tinted cup.

Juan stood fixed and pale; Pepita stepped
Backward within the ring: the voices fell
From shouts insistent to more passive tones
Half meaning welcome, half astonishment.
"Lady Fedalma !—will she dance for us?"

But she, sole swayed by impulse passionate,
Feeling all life was music and ali eyes

The warming quickening light that music makes,
Moved as, in dance religious, Miriam,

When on the Red Sea shore she raised her voice
And led the chorus of her people's joy;
Or as the Trojan maids that reverent sang
Watching the sorrow-crowned Hecuba :1
Moved in slow curves voluminous, gradual,
Feeling and action flowing into one,
In Eden's natural taintless marriage-bond
Ardently modest, sensuously pure,
With young delight that wonders at itself
And throbs as innocent as opening flowers,
Knowing not comment-soilless, beautiful.
The spirit in her gravely glowing face
With sweet community informs her limbs,
Filling their fine gradation with the breath
Of virgin majesty; as full vowelled words
Are new impregnate with the master's thought.
Even the chance-strayed delicate tendrils black,
That backward 'scape from out her wreathing hair-
Even the pliant folds that cling transverse

When with obliquely soaring bend altern

She seems a goddess quitting earth again—
Gather expression-a soft undertone

And resonance exquisite from the grand chord
Of her harmoniously bodied soul.

GEORGE ELIOT.

I The second wife of Priam, king of Troy. She lost nearly all her children in the Trojan war.

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