CLEOPATRA.

THE barge she sat in, like a burnished

throne,

Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold,

Purple the sails, and so perfumèd, that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggared all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, (cloth-of-gold, of tissue,)

O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see,

The fancy out-work nature: on each side her,

Stood pretty boys, like smiling Cupids,

With diverse-colored fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool

And what they undid, did. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i'

the eyes,

And made their bends adornings: at the helm

A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackles

Swell with the touches of those

flower-soft hands,

THE GLADIATOR.

I SEE before me the gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand; -his manly brow

Consents to death, but conquers agony,

And his drooped head sinks gradually low

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow

From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him - he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not, his eyes

Were with his heart, and that was far away;

He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize,

But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,

There were his young barbarians all at play,

There was their Dacian mother, he, their sire,

Butchered to make a Roman holi

I saw their thousand years of snow their wide long lake be

On high, low, And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; I heard the torrents leap and gush O'er channelled rock and broken bush;

I saw the white-walled distant town, And whiter sails go skimming down; And then there was a little isle, Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

A small green isle, it seemed no more,

Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,

But in it there were three tall trees, And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, And by it there were waters flowing, And on it there were young flowers growing,

Of gentle breath and hue.
The fish swam by the castle-wall,
And they seemed joyous each and
all;

The eagle rode the rising blast;
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seemed to fly, -
And then new tears came in my
eye,

And the headsman with his bare arm ready,

That the blow may be both swift and steady,

Feels if the axe be sharp and true-
Since he set its edge anew:
While the crowd in a speechless cir-
cle gather,

To see the son fall by the doom of the father.

It is a lovely hour as yet
Before the summer sun shall set,
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As, his last confession pouring,
To the monk his doom deploring,
In penitential holiness,

He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.

He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bowed and prayed,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
BYRON.

FROM THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

THE night is past, and shines the

sun

As if that morn were a jocund

one.

Lightly

away

and brightly breaks

The morning from her mantle gray,

And the noon will look on a sultry day.

Hark to the trump, and the drum,

And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,

And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne,

And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum,

And the clash, and the shout, "They come, they come!"

The horse-tails are plucked from the ground, and the sword From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word.

bare,

So is the blade of his scimitar; The Khan and his pachas are all at their post:

The vizier himself at the head of the host.

When the culverin's signal is fired, then On!

Leave not in Corinth a living one A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,

A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.

God and the prophet - Alla Hu! Up to the skies with that wild halloo! "There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale;

And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?

He who first downs with the red cross may crave

His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!" Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier;

The reply was the brandish of sabre

and spear,

And the shout of fierce thousands

in joyous ire: Silence-hark to the signal-fire!

BYRON.

great Bolingbroke, Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed, Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,

With slow but stately pace, kept on his course,

While all tongues cried, "God save thee, Bolingbroke!"

You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old

Through casements darted their desiring eyes

Upon his visage, and that all the walls,

With painted imagery, had said at once,

"Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke!"

Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,

Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck, Bespake them thus,

countrymen:"

."I thank you,

And thus still doing, thus he passed along.

Duch.-Alas, poor Richard, where rides he the while?

York. - As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,

Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious: Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes

Did scowl on Richard; no man cried, God save him!

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,

Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reaped,

Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home;

He was perfumèd like a milliner; And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and

anon

He gave his nose, and took't away again;

Who therewith angry, when it next came there,

Took it in snuff:- and still he smiled and talked; And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

To bring a slovenly unhandsome

corse

Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me; among the rest demanded

My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,

To be so pestered with a popinjay, Out of my grief and my impatience, Answered neglectingly, I know not what;

He should, or he should not; - for he made me mad

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting-gentle

The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,

And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe:

It rises, roars, rends all outright,
Ó Vulcan, what a glow!

'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright, the high sun shines not so!

The high sun sees not, on the earth,

such a fiery fearful show; The roof-ribs swarth, the candent

hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths that stand, an ardent

band, like men before the foe. As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster, slow

Sinks on the anvil;-all about the faces fiery grow.

"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out

leap out;" bang, bang, the sledges go; Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low;

For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,

And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road, The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains!

But courage still, brave mariners the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns, save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing - here am I."

Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time: Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime. But while you sling your sledges, sing, and let the burthen be, The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in

-the sparks begin to dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped. Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array, For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here, For the yeo-heave-o', and the heaveaway, and the sighing seaman's cheer;

When, weighing slow, at eve they go far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.