THE WATER-SNAKES This and the following verse are a few beautiful words from a great poem, The Ancient Mariner, too long for full quotation in this book. BEYOND the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes : They moved in tracks of shining white, Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam and every track Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue A spring of love gushed from my heart, Sure my kind Saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. SLEEP O SLEEP! it is a gentle thing, To Mary Queen the praise be given ! SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA A wooden sailing ship as the sailor loved it. A WET sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast And fills the white and rustling sail And bends the gallant mast, my boys, Away the good ship flies, and leaves O for a soft and gentle wind! But give to me the snoring breeze There's tempest in yon horned moon, But hark the music, mariners ! While the hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. THE ISLES OF GREECE Byron writes for Greece in the person of a Greek. And in the person of a Greek, making himself a patriot for a country not his own, he died. This poem is, I think, the finest and noblest he has written. I have left out the two or three stanzas that required full knowledge of Greek history. THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece! The mountains look on Marathon, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not think myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And men in nations ;-all were his! 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, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? And answer, 'Let one living head, But one, arise, we come, we come! 'Tis but the living who are dumb. You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, The nobler and the manlier one? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine! LORD BYRON. THE NOSEGAY One of the most beautiful of the many flower-poems in English poetry. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; |