Works

How plain and height
With dewdrops are bright!
How pearls have crown'd
The plants all around!
How sighs the breeze
Thro' thicket and trees!
How loudly in the sun's clear rays...

SCENE I.

THOAS. ARKAS.


ARKAS.
I own I am perplex'd, and scarcely know
'Gainst whom to point the shaft of my suspicion,
Whether the priestess aids the captives' flight,...

Iphigenia In Tauris. - Act The First.

SCENE I.
A Grove before the Temple of Diana.


IPHIGENIA.
Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs
Of this old, shady, consecrated grove,...

SCENE I.


IPHIGENIA.
When the Powers on high decree
For a feeble child of earth
Dire perplexity and woe,
And his spirit doom to pass
With tumult wild from joy to grief,...

SCENE I.

ORESTES. PYLADES.


ORESTES.
It is the path of death that now we tread:
At every step my soul grows more serene.
When I implor'd Apollo to remove...

SCENE I.

IPHIGENIA. ORESTES.


IPHIGENIA.
Unhappy man, I only loose thy bonds
In token of a still severer doom.
The freedom which the sanctuary imparts,...

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

IPHIGENIA. THOAS, King of the Taurians.
ORESTES. PYLADES. ARKAS.




ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I....

THE DAM BREAKS DOWN, THE ICE-PLAIN GROWLS,
THE FLOODS ARISE, THE WATER HOWLS.

"I'll bear thee, mother, across the swell,

'Tis not yet high, I can wade right well."
...

A Dragon-Fly with beauteous wing
Is hov'ring o'er a silv'ry spring;
I watch its motions with delight,
Now dark its colours seem, now bright;
Chameleon-like appear, now blue,...

As a fisher-boy I fared

To the black rock in the sea,
And, while false gifts I prepared.

Listen'd and sang merrily,
Down descended the decoy,

Soon a fish attack'd the bait;...

She behind yon mountain lives,
Who my love's sweet guerdon gives.
Tell me, mount, how this can be!
Very glass thou seem'st to me,
And I seem to be close by,
For I see her drawing nigh;...

Water-fetching goes the noble
Brahmin's wife, so pure and lovely;
He is honour'd, void of blemish.
And of justice rigid, stern.
Daily from the sacred river
Brings she back refreshments precious;...

Now, gentle reader, is our journey ended,

Mute is our minstrel, silent is our song;
Sweet the bard's voice whose strains our course attended,

Pleasant the paths he guided us along....

Thou wert forcibly seized by the hoary lord of the river,

Holding thee, ever he shares with thee his streaming domain,
Calmly sleepest thou near his urn as it silently trickles,
...

A FAIR bell-flower

Sprang tip from the ground;
And early its fragrance

It shed all around;
A bee came thither

And sipp'd from its bell;
That they for each other
...

There's no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily's at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,...

Within a gloomy charnel-house one day

I view'd the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were grey.

Close pack'd they stand, that once so fiercely hated,...

HALF vex'd, half pleased, thy love will feel,
Shouldst thou her knot or ribbon steal;
To thee they're much I won't conceal;

Such self-deceit may pardon'd be;
A veil, a kerchief, garter, rings,...

What pulls at my heart so?

What tells me to roam?
What drags me and lures me

From chamber and home?
How round the cliffs gather

The clouds high in air!
I fain would go thither,...

On a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch'd out like a pall of greyish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover'd.

Suddenly a boy appear'd beside me,...