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I never see, after nocturnal rain,
The wandering stars move through the air serene,
And flame forth 'twixt the dew-fall and the rime,
But I behold her radiant eyes wherein...

It is night; and I am alone, forlorn
on the hill of storms. The wind is
heard in the mountain. The torrent
shrieks down the rock. No hut receives
me from the rain; forlorn on the hill of
winds.
...

Sad! I am sad indeed: nor small my
cause of woe!--Kirmor, thou hast
lost no son; thou hast lost no daughter
of beauty. Connar the valiant lives;
and Annir the fairest of maids. The...

RYNO, ALPIN.

RYNO

The wind and the rain are over:
calm is the noon of day. The
clouds are divided in heaven. Over
the green hills flies the inconstant sun....

[Footnote: This is the opening of the epic poem mentioned in the preface. The two following fragments are parts of some episodes of the same work.]

Cuchlaid sat by the wall; by the
tree of the rustling leaf....

DUCHOMMAR, MORNA.

DUCHOMMAR.
...

[1]Where is Gealchossa my love, the
daughter of Tuathal-Teachvar?
I left her in the hall of the plain, when I
fought with the hairy Ulfadha. Return
soon, she said, O Lamderg! for...

When the famed Argo now secure had passed
The crushing rocks,[1] and that terrific strait
That guards the wintry Pontic, the tall ship
Reached wild Bebrycia's shores; bearing like gods...

Who is this man
that walketh in the field,
O Eleazar,
steward to my lord?

And Eleazar
answered her and said,
Daughter of Bethuel,
it is other none
But my lord Isaac,...

THE INSCRIPTION

Poor floating isle, tost on ill fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand;
Thou fix'd of old, be now the moving land!...

[1]


Come, Yarmouth, my boy, never trouble your brains,
About what your old crony,
The Emperor Boney,
Is doing or brewing on Muscovy's plains;
...

The man who keeps a conscience pure,
(If not his own, at least his Prince's,)
Thro' toil and danger walks secure,
Looks big and black and never winces.

No want has he of sword or dagger,...

persico odi, puer, adparatus;
displicent nexae philyra coronae;
mitte sectari, Rosa quo locorum
sera moretur.


TRANSLATED BY A TREASURY CLERK, WHILE WAITING DINNER FOR THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE ROBE....

Hist? . . .
Through the corridor's echoes,
Louder and nearer
Comes a great shuffling of feet.
Quick, every one of you,
Strighten your quilts, and be decent!
Here's the Professor.
...

Two and thirty is the ploughman.
He's a man of gallant inches,
And his hair is close and curly,
And his beard;
But his face is wan and sunken,
And his eyes are large and brilliant,...

As with varnish red and glistening
Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid;
Raised, he settled stiffly sideways:
You could see his hurts were spinal.

He had fallen from an engine,...

From the winter's grey despair,
From the summer's golden languor,
Death, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever.

Inevitable, silent, unseen,
Everywhere always,...

Blue-eyed and bright of face but waning fast
Into the sere of virginal decay,
I view her as she enters, day by day,
As a sweet sunset almost overpast.
Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,...

Exceeding tall, but built so well his height
Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb;
Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim;
Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright...

Here in this dim, dull, double-bedded room,
I play the father to a brace of boys,
Ailing but apt for every sort of noise,
Bedfast but brilliant yet with health and bloom....