"Hester"; Browning's "My Last Duchess," "Evelyn Hope," and "Porphyria's Lover"; Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and "Lancelot and Elaine"; Pope's "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady"; Landor's "The Death of Artemidora"; Hood's "The Bridge of Sighs"; and Rossetti's "The Blessed Damozel," which was inspired by "The Raven."

In "Highland Mary" and "To Mary in Heaven” Burns celebrated a woman who is now almost as famous as Dante's Beatrice and Petrarch's Laura. Yet little is known of Mary Campbell except that she came from the Scottish Highlands and was probably a nurserymaid. The story of her romantic parting with the poet is familiar. They stood on opposite banks of a little brook, exchanged vows, and parted never to meet again, for five months later Highland Mary was dead. Drumlie means muddy; aft, often; sae, so.

HIGHLAND MARY

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,

Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!

There Simmer first unfauld her robes,

And there the langest tarry;

For there I took the last fareweel
O' my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,

As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasp'd her to my bosom!

The golden hours on angel wings

Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Wi' mony a vow and lock'd embrace
Our parting was fu' tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursel's asunder;

But oh! fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary!

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft ha'e kiss'd sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mould'ring now in silent dust,
That heart that lo'ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

If little is known of Highland Mary, less still is definitely known concerning the woman whom, under the name of Lucy, Wordsworth celebrated in three or four beautiful lyrics. The second stanza of the following poem is one of the finest passages in Wordsworth's poems.

SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!
-Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and oh,

The difference to me!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

A German critic of the following poem by Landor is said to have remarked that one night is far too little to consecrate to grief for a lost sweetheart; why not a lifetime? But one cannot judge of the sincerity of a man's sorrow by the extravagance of his language. In poetry, as everywhere else, he who says less than he feels is surest to convince us of his sincerity. Rose Aylmer, the daughter of Baron Aylmer, died in India in 1800.

ROSE AYLMER

Ah, what avails the sceptred race,

Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes

May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs

I consecrate to thee.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

Among the shorter poems of Lord Byron, few have been more admired than the following stanzas:

OH! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM

Oh! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear

Their leaves, the earliest of the year;
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,
And feed deep thought with many a dream,
And lingering pause and lightly tread;
Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

Away! we know that tears are vain,

That death nor heeds nor hears distress:

Will this unteach us to complain?

Or make one mourner weep the less?

And thou-who tell'st me to forget,

Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

Unlike the preceding selections, Matthew Arnold's "Requiescat" is not a love poem. The Latin title means May she rest in peace!

REQUIESCAT

Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!

In quiet she reposes;

Ah, would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required;

She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,

And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.

But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin'd, ample spirit,

It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.

To-night it doth inherit

The vasty hall of death.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

The poems we have quoted are all lyrics. Whittier's "Telling the Bees" is narrative and idyllic. The superstition that, when a member of the family dies, the bees will fly away unless they are told of it, is found in rural districts in New England and the West. The New England summer landscape is here described as skilfully as are the winter scenes in "Snow-Bound.”

TELLING THE BEES

Here is the place; right over the hill

Runs the path I took;

You can see the gap in the old wall still,

And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;

And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun;

And down by the brink

Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.