924 AGENOR-MEDON-ION ELCOME to the morn! Age. WE Me. the eastern gates unfold, the Priest approaches; and lo! the sun is struggling with the gloom, whose masses fill the eastern sky, and tints its edges with dull red:—but he will triumph; bless'd be the omen! God of light and joy, that wait upon thy rising, help is nigh- 品 Sayst thou in blood? Ion. spite of his new-born strength;-the sights of woe Ion. I passed the palace where the frantic king yet holds his crimson revel, whence the roar of desperate mirth comes mingling with the sigh of death-subdued robustness, and the gleam of festal lamps 'mid spectral columns hung flaunting o'er shapes of anguish made them ghastlier. How can I cease to tremble for the sad ones he mocks-and him the wretchedest of all? T. N. TALFOURD 925 FOR LAERTES TO OPHELIA OR Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, a violet in the youth of primy nature, Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain, or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open 926 Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister; SINC W. SHAKESPEARE DESCRIPTION OF A PESTILENCE INCE Egypt's plagues did never rage disease so sore and so invincible by art, so varied in its forms and in its signs so unintelligibly strange: in some the fever keeps its course from first to last; in others intermits: here suddenly the patient's head is seiz'd with racking pains; Sometimes such shudderings seize upon the frame as from a dream, shake off the fit, look round, H. TAYLOR 927 KNOWELL'S ADVICE TO MASTER STEPHEN A COUNTRY-GULL 928 EARN to be wise, and practise how to thrive ; LEARN to be wise, a you do: and not to spend your coin on every bauble that you fancy, I'd have you sober, and contain yourself; which is an airy and mere borrowed thing, from dead men's dust and bones; and none of yours except you make, or hold it. BEN JONSON Elid. Vel. ELIDURUS-AULUS DIDIUS-VELLINUS NOW that thou stand'st on consecrated ground: thus ranged in mystic order, mark the place the Druid leads his train. Aul. Did. Where dwells the seer? In yonder shaggy cave; on which the moon now sheds a side-long gleam. His brotherhood Elid. On the left reside the sages skill'd in Nature's lore: the changeful universe, its numbers, powers, studious they measure, save when meditation gives place to holy rites: then in the grove each hath his rank and function. Yonder grots are tenanted by bards, who nightly thence, rob'd in their flowing vests of innocent white, descend, with harps that glitter to the moon, hymning immortal strains. The spirits of air, of earth, of water, nay of heav'n itself, do listen to their lay, and oft, 'tis said, in visible shapes dance they a magic round to the high minstrelsy. W. MASON 929 CENONE TO PARIS ND whereon then shall be my roundelay? AND for thou hast heard my store long since, dare say; how Saturn did divide his kingdom tho, to Jove, to Neptune, and to Dis below; how mighty men made foul successless war, how Phorcys' imp, that was so trick and fair, a pretty fable, Paris, for to read; how Plato raught Queen Ceres' daughter thence, and what did follow of that love offence; of Daphne turned into the laurel tree, that shews a mirror of virginity; how fair Narcissus, tooting on his shade, reproves disdain, and tells how form doth vade; what force in love, what wit in sorrow dwells; G. PEELE 930 THE PATRIARCH OF THE GREEK CHURCH-NICEPHORUS BOTONIATES EMPEROR OF THE EAST Pat. will abet your majesty in all, PEAK but the word at once, the blow shall follow. so it be sudden. Whatsoe'er is fear'd in states is dangerous. The man is bold, Nic. That is my fear: for he is not like all. in him which oft secures it when most menaced. Pat. His friends are not as he is. Him removed, they straight are nothing. Nic. How canst thou divide them? Pat. My liege, 'twere easy, as I said, if sudden. But let a rumour of our aim go forth, and him made desperate at the head of friends whom he knows well the art, when at their head, to keep as firm as rocks, whom else each wind would shake adrift like waves-this suffered, sire, I answer not for what might then betide. Know you not there are maladies in men which in their rise were easy to be cured were they but known; whereof when clear become the diagnostics, difficult is the cure. For treason timely treatment. H. TAYLOR 931 Pro. SAY AY, my spirit, Ari. PROSPERO how fares the king and his? Confin'd together in the line grove which weather-fends your cell; |