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Scheherazade immediately began the following story.


I.

Ali Ben Ali (did you never read
His wond'rous acts that chronicles relate, -
How there was one in pity might exceed...

The stars are mansions built by Nature's hand,
And, haply, there the spirits of the blest
Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest;
Huge Ocean shows, within his yellow strand,...

In The Concluding Part Of A Discourse On Fame.


(He thinks.)

If there be memory in the world to come,
If thought recur to SOME THINGS silenced here,...

An empty bench, a sky of grayest etching,
A bare, bleak shed in blackest silhouette,
Twelve years of platform, and before them stretching
Twelve miles of prairie glimmering through the wet.
...

Pallas, a goddess chaste and wise
Descending lately from the skies,
To Neptune went, and begg'd in form
He'd give his orders for a storm;
A storm, to drown that rascal Hort,[1]...

This is the story the stockman told
On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright;
The moon rose up like a globe of gold
And flooded the plain with her mellow light.
We watched the cattle till dawn of day...

"Tell me a Sunday story,"
A dear child said to me;
And I bent down and kissed her
And placed her on my knee.

"Once, long ago, in countries
Far, very far away,...

This is the story of Moses,
The earliest scribe that we keep:
Void was the earth and formless,
And dark was the face of the deep,
Till God's word flashed in lightning,
Beautiful, bountiful, bright,...

This is the man that shoots the hares;
This is the coat he always wears:
With game-bag, powder-horn, and gun
He's going out to have some fun.

He finds it hard, without a pair...

"Now what is that, my daughter dear, upon thy cheek so fair?"
"'Tis but a kiss, my mother dear - kind fortune sent it there.
It was a courteous stranger-man that gave it unto me,...

First, April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array;
Next enters June, and brings us more...

How is it, O moon, that melting,
Unstintedly, prodigally,
On the peaks' hard majesty,
Till they seem diaphanous
And fluctuant as a veil,
And pouring thy rapturous light...

The sun threw down a radiant spot
On the face in the winding-sheet -
The face it had lit when a babe's in its cot;
And the sun knew not, and the face knew not
That soon they would no more meet.
...

And must we part, because some say
Loud is our love, and loose our play,
And more than well becomes the day?
Alas for pity! and for us
Most innocent, and injured thus!...

From north to south throughout the year
The shearing seasons run,
The Queensland stations start to shear
When Maoriland has done;
But labour's cheap and runs are wide,
And some the track must tread...

Dedicated To The Stay-At-Home Rangers

Now, while our soldiers are fighting our battles,
Each at his post to do all that he can,
Down among rebels and contraband chattels,...

("Lorsque le regiment des hallebardiers.")

[Bk. XXXI.]


When the regiment of Halberdiers
Is proudly marching by,
The eagle of the mountain screams
From out his stormy sky;...

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,...

The room is quiet, thoughts alone
People its mute tranquillity;
The yoke put off, the long task done,
I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
For the first time, how soft the day...

BY ED. SP.

LONDON: IMPRINTED FOR WILLIAM PONSONBIE, DWELLING IN PAULES CHURCHYARD AT THE SIGNE OF THE BISHOPS HEAD.

1591.

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