From the Greek by Andrew Lang
TEARS for my lady dead—
Heliodore!
Salt tears, and strange to shed,
Over and o’er;
Tears to my lady dead,
Love do we send,
Longed for, rememberèd,
Lover and friend!
Sad are the songs we sing,
Tears that we shed,
Empty the gifts we bring
Gifts to...
From the French by Louisa Stuart Costello
’T IS done! a father, mother, gone,
A sister, brother, torn away,
My hope is now in God alone,
Whom heaven and earth alike obey.
Above, beneath, to him is known,—
The world’s wide compass is his own.
I love,—but in the world no more,
Nor in gay hall, or festal bower;
Not...
[Written in September, 1789, on the anniversary of the day on which he heard of the death of his early love, Mary Campbell.]
THOU lingering star, with lessening ray,
That lov’st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usher’st in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
...
O Sing unto my roundelay!
O, drop the briny tear with me!
Dance no more at holiday;
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow-tree.
Black his hair as the winter night,
White his neck as the summer snow,
Ruddy his face as the morning light;
Cold...
From the German by Sarah Taylor Austin
MANY a year is in its grave
Since I crossed this restless wave:
And the evening, fair as ever,
Shines on ruin, rock, and river.
Then in this same boat beside,
Sat two comrades old and tried,—
One with all a father’s truth,
One with all the fire of youth.
One on earth in silence...
I ’m sittin’ on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side
On a bright May mornin’ long ago,
When first you were my bride;
The corn was springin’ fresh and green,
And the lark sang loud and high—
And the red was on your lip, Mary,
And the love-light in your eye.
The place is little changed, Mary;
The day is...
From “The Princess”
HOME they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry;
All her maidens, watching, said,
“She must weep or she will die.”
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her...
Word was brought to the Danish king
(Hurry!)
That the love of his heart lay suffering,
And pined for the comfort his voice would bring;
(O, ride as though you were flying!)
Better he loves each golden curl
On the brow of that Scandinavian girl
Than his rich crown jewels of ruby and pearl:
And his rose of the isles is...
From “Hamlet,” Act I. Sc. 2.
QUEEN.—Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, forever, with thy veilèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know’st ’t is common,—all that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET.—Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN...
[Arthur Henry Hallam, Ob. 1833]
Grief Unspeakable
V.
I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel:
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics,...
