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Beware how you deride
The exiles from life's sunny side:
To you is little known
How soon their case may be your own.
On this, sage Aesop gives a tale or two,
As in my verses I propose to do....

Never mock at other people's misfortune; for you cannot tell how soon you yourself may be unhappy. 'sop the sage has given us one or two examples of this truth, and I am going to tell you of a similar one now.
...

'Twas a race between Tortoise and Hare,
Puss was sure she'd so much time to spare,
That she lay down to sleep,
And let old Thick-shell creep
To the winning post first!--You may stare.
...

Said the Tortoise one day to the Hare:
"I'll run you a race if you dare.
I'll bet you cannot
Arrive at that spot
As quickly as I can get there."

Quoth the Hare: "You are surely insane....

You give no portent of impermanence
Though before sun goes you are long gone hence,
Your bright, inherited crown
Withered and fallen down.

It seems that your blue immobility...

Timid Hares, from the trumpeting wind,
Fled as swift as the fear in their mind;
Till in fright from their fear,
From the green sedges near,
Leaping Frogs left their terror behind.
...

Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found,
Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep,
Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap
Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound,...

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play...

Now it is nearly time when, quivering on its stem,
Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent;
Sounds and perfumes are mingling in the evening air;
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!
...

One musician is sure,
His wisdom will not fail,
He has not tasted wine impure,
Nor bent to passion frail.
Age cannot cloud his memory,
Nor grief untune his voice,
Ranging down the ruled scale...

Across the wind-swept spaces of the sky
The harp of all the world is hung on high,
And through its shining strings the swallows fly.

The little silver fingers of the rain...

Sweet bard, whose tones great Milton might approve,
And Shakspeare, from high Fancy's sphere,
Turning to the sound his ear,
Bend down a look of sympathy and love;
Oh, swell the lyre again,...

Like a drift of faded blossoms
Caught in a slanting rain,
His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp
In a tremulous refrain:

Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip!...

Edain came out of Midhir's hill, and lay
Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass,
Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds
And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs,...

It was a high and holy sight,
When Baldwin[2] and his train,
With cross and crosier gleaming bright,
Came chanting slow the solemn rite,
To Gwentland's[3] pleasant plain.
...

High on the hill, with moss o'ergrown,
A hermit chapel stood;
It spoke the tale of seasons gone,
And half-revealed its ivied stone.
Amid the beechen wood.

Here often, when the mountain trees...

The harp of the minstrel has never a tone
As sad as the song in his bosom to-night,
For the magical touch of his fingers alone
Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright;...

I

THE LAST GLEN

Hist! once more!
Listen, Pausanias! Aye, 'tis Callicles!
I know those notes among a thousand. Hark!

CALLICLES

(Sings unseen, from below.)...

All day, all day in a calm like death
The harp hung waiting the sea wind's breath.

When the western sky flushed red with shame
At the sun's bold kiss, the sea wind came.
...

The harp that once thro' Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls.
As if that soul were fled.--
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er,...