There is woe in Oxford halls, there is wail in Durham's stalls;

The Jesuit smites his bosom, the bishop rends his cope.

And She of the seven hills shall mourn her children's ills, And tremble when she thinks on the edge of England's sword;

And the kings of earth in fear shall shudder when they

hear

What the hand of God hath wrought for the Houses

and the Word!

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THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

From

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE

I

I THOUGHT how once Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wish'd-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mus'd it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,
"Guess now who holds thee!". "Death," I said.
But, there,

The silver answer rang

"Not Death, but Love." ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

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A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin, and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;

And hack'd and hew'd as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,

And notch'd the poor dry empty thing

In holes, as he sat by the river.

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"This is the way," laugh'd the great god Pan, (Laugh'd while he sat by the river,)

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"The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed."

Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!

Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies reviv'd, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows never more again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

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MOTHER AND POET

TURIN, AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861

DEAD! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,

Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,

And good at my art, for a woman, men said; But this woman, this who is agoniz'd here,

The east sea and the west sea rhyme on in

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What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain!

What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you

press'd,

And I proud, by that test.

What art's for a woman?

To hold on her knees

Both darlings; to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little, to sew by degrees

And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat;
To dream and to doat.

To teach them... It stings there! I made them

indeed

Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no

doubt,

That a country 's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about

The tyrant cast out.

And when their eyes flashed... O my beautiful eyes!... I exulted; nay, let them go forth at the wheels

Of the guns, and denied not.

When one sits quite alone!

one kneels !

God, how the house feels!

But then the surprise

Then one weeps, then

At first, happy news came, in gay letters moil'd

With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how

They both lov'd me; and, soon coming home to be

spoil'd,

In return would fan off every fly from my brow

With their green laurel-bough.

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Then was triumph at Turin: "Ancona was free!"
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheer'd in the street.

I bore it; friends sooth'd me; my grief look'd sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remain'd
To be leant on and walk'd with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us
strain'd

To the height he had gain'd.

And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand, "I was not to faint, -
One lov'd me for two- would be with me ere long:
And Viva l'Italia!- he died for, our saint,

Who forbids our complaint."

My Nanni would add, "he was safe, and aware

Of a presence that turn'd off the balls, - was impress'd It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 't was impossible, quite dispossess'd, To live on for the rest."

On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line,
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother,

"mine,"

No voice says "My mother" again to me. What!
You think Guido forgot?

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?

not

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