66 Bring another cup, and straightway to the noble Persian give: "Balder! brother! the divine has vanishedThe eternal splendors all have fled; Drink, I said before, and perish-now I bid thee Truth and love and nobleness are banished; drink and live!" For the tears of the imperial mother, For a universe that weeps and prays, Rides Hermoder forth to seek his brotherRides for love of that distressful mother, Through lead-colored glens and cross-blue ways. With the howling wind and raving torrent, Nine days rode he, deep and deeper downReached the vast death-kingdom, rough and horrent, Reached the lonely bridge that spans the torrent There he found the ancient portress standing- 66 The heroic and divine have vanished; Nature has no god, and earth lies dead. "Come thou back, my Balder-king and brother! Teach the hearts of men to love the gods! Come thou back, and comfort our great moth er Come with truth and bravery, Balder, brotherBring the godlike back to men's abodes!" But the Nornas let him pray unheeded Young Hermoder wept and prayed in vain. Still the young Hermoder journeys bravely, But the fates relent not; strong endeavor, Do you think I counsel weak despairing! Dead and gone is the old world's ideal, Courage, brothers, God is overhead! ANONYMOUS. Soul and Body. BEFORE the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with sin for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance, fallen from heaven; And madness, risen from hell; Strength, without hands to smite; Love, that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light; And life, the shadow of death. And the high gods took in hand From under the feet of the years, And froth and drift of the sea, And dust of the laboring earth, And bodies of things to be SOUL AND BODY. In the houses of death and of birth, And death beneath and above, That his strength might endure for a span, With travail and heavy sorrow, The holy spirit of man. From the winds of the North and the South They gathered as unto strife; They filled his body with life; And love, and a space for delight, And night, and sleep in the night. His speech is a burning fire; With his lips he travaileth; In his heart is a blind desire, In his eyes foreknowledge of death. He weaves, and is clothed with derision; His life is a watch or a vision 639 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. Address to the Mummy at Belzoni's Exhibition. AND thou hast walked about (how strange a story!) In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago, Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy; Thou hast a tongue-come-let us hear its tune; Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features. Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect — Of either pyramid that bears his name? Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer? Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade; Then say what secret melody was hidden In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played? Perhaps thou wert a priest; if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles. Perhaps that very hand, now pinioned flat, Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's hat; Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass; The Fisher's Cottage. WE sat by the fisher's cottage, And looked at the stormy tide; The evening mist came rising, And floating far and wide. One by one in the light-house The lamps shone out on high; And far on the dim horizon A ship went sailing by. We spoke of storm and shipwreck- We spoke of distant countries, In regions strange and fair; And of the wondrous beings And curious customs there; Of perfumed lamps on the Ganges, Which are launched in the twilight hour; And the dark and silent Brahmins, Who worship the lotus-flower; Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland - And the maidens earnestly listened, Translation of CHARLES G. Leland. The Two Oceans. Two seas, amid the night, In the moonshine roll and sparkleNow spread in the silver light, Now sadden, and wail, and darkle. The one has a billowy motion, And from land to land it gleams; The other is sleep's wide ocean, And its glimmering waves are dreams. |