From “Gebir,” Book I.
I AM not daunted, no; I will engage.
But first, said she, what wager will you lay?
A sheep, I answered, add whate’er you will.
I cannot, she replied, make that return:
Our hided vessels in their pitchy round
Seldom, unless from rapine, hold a sheep.
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and they that...
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No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,—
The ship was as still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion;
Her keel was steady in the ocean.Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.The...
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Go, patter to lubbers and swabs, do ye see,
’Bout danger, and fear, and the like;
A tight-water boat and good sea-room give me,
And it a’n’t to a little I ’ll strike.
Though the tempest topgallant-masts smack smooth should smite,
And shiver each splinter of wood,—
Clear the deck, stow the yards, and bouse everything tight,
And... -
From the German by Sir Theodore Martin and William Edmondstoune Aytoun
WHO rides so late through the midnight blast?
’T is a father spurs on with his child full fast;
He gathers the boy well into his arm,
He clasps him close and he keeps him warm.“My son, why thus to my arm dost cling?”—
“Father, dost thou not see the elfin-king?
The... -
A Tale
“Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke.”
—GAWIN DOUGLAS.WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An’ folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,... -
From the German by Charles Timothy Brooks
THE WATERS purled, the waters swelled,—
A fisher sat near by,
And earnestly his line beheld
With tranquil heart and eye;
And while he sits and watches there,
He sees the waves divide,
And, lo! a maid, with glistening hair,
Springs from the troubled tide.She sang to him,...
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From Canto I.
The castle hight of Indolence,
And its false luxury;
Where for a little time, alas!
We lived right jollily.O MORTAL man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date;
And, certes, there is for it... -
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 1
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens, bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;... -
IN 1 eddying course when leaves began to fly,
And Autumn in her lap the store to strew,
As mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo,
Through glens untrod, and woods that frowned on high,
Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy!
And, lo, she ’s gone!—In robe of dark-green hue,
’T was Echo from her sister Silence flew,
For quick the... -
From “Irene”
TO-MORROW’S action! can that hoary wisdom,
Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow!
The fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward and the fool, condemned to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect.
Strange...