* 96 *

TIMES GO BY TURNS.

The lopped tree in time may grow again,

Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorriest wight may find release of pain;

The driest soil suck up some moistening shower; Times go by turns, and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

The sea of fortune doth not ever flow;

She draws her favors to the lowest ebb; Her tides have equal times to come and go;

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web; No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring;
Not endless night, nor yet eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing,

The roughest storm, a calm may soon allay,
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none, are crossed;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, have some; who most, have never all.
Robert Southwell.

*97*

ABOU BEN ADHEM.

Abou Ben Adhem-may his tribe increase-
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel, writing in a book of gold;

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;

And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised his head, And with a look made all of sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. 66
Nay not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
He came again with great awakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed.
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

*98*

THE ISLES OF GREECE.

Leigh Hunt.

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,—
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,

But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian Muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo farther west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."

The mountains look on Marathon,-
And Marathon looks on the sea;

And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free;

For, standing on the Persians' grave,

I could not deem myself a slave.

"The isles of Greece! The isles of Greece Where burning Sappho loved and sung."

The Isles of Greece.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men in nations ;-all were his! He counted them at break of day,—

And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now,—

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine
Degenerate into hands like mine?

'Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race;
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush,-for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred, grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla.

What, silent still? and silent all?

Ah! No, the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, "Let one living head, But one, arise,-we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain,-in vain; strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,

How answers each bold bacchanal!