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LOVE.

29. Wifely Love.

To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned:
'My author and disposer, what thou biddest
Unargued I obey; so God ordains :

God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming-on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train :
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds: nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.'
Paradise Lost, iv.

MALICE.

30. The Curse of Kehama.

I charm thy life

From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent's tooth,

And the beasts of blood;
From sickness I charm thee,

And time shall not harm thee,

But earth, which is mine,
Its fruits shall deny thee;
And water shall hear me,

And know thee and fly thee;

And the winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee;

And the dews shall not wet thee

When they fall nigh thee:
And thou shalt seek death
To release thee in vain;
Thou shalt live in thy pain,
While Kehama shall reign
With a fire in thy heart,
And a fire in thy brain;
And sleep shall obey me,
And visit thee never,

And the curse shall be on thee,

For ever and ever.-SOUTHEY.

MARTIAL ENTHUSIASM.

31. Henry's Speech to his Soldiers before Harfleur.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more: Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George !'

Henry V. iii. 1.

32. The Battle of Hohenlinden.

On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow
And dark as winter, was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed,
To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rushed the steed to battle driven,
And louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.

And redder yet those fires shall glow,
On Linden's hills of stainéd snow,
And darker yet shall be the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

'Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun,
Shout in their sulphurous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.--CAMPBELL.

MIRTH.

33. Description of Queen Mab.

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,

The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again--Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 4.

34. From L'Allegro.

Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,

In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne,

And by Men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,

With two sister Graces more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,

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