Pardon the affront? Thou shouldst have asked thyself Put up thy sword," said the sad youth, his eyes Look on them both awhile: they saw not him, Thy pardon, thus abuse the holy rites Twice over." "Well hast thou performed thy duty," Firmly and gravely said Peisistratos. Nothing. then, rash young man! could turn thy heart From Eunöe, my daughter ?" "L Nay. she shall see what thou canst bear for her." I know how much that is when borne for me." To poverty and exile, this, my child." Then shuddered Thrasymedes, and exclaimed, "I see my crime, I saw it not before. The daughter of Peisistratos was born Neither for exile nor for poverty, Ah! not for me!" He would have wept, but one Strode on, and said, "To-morrow shall the people The justice of Peisistratos, the love He bears his daughter, and the reverence In which he holds the highest law of God." He spake; and on the morrow they were one. Did not Mr. Landor write this scene of Orestes one fine June morning, seated on a garden-roller in the court before Mr. Kenyon's house in London? fitting home for such an inspiration! And is not that the way that such scenes are written? not sitting down with malice prepense to compose poetry, but letting it come when it will and how it will, and striking it off at a heat. THE DEATH OF CLYTEMNESTRA. ORESTES AND ELECTRA. Electra. Pass on, my brother! she awaits the wretch, None other name shall name him-she awaits As would a lover Heavenly Gods! what poison O'erflows my lips! Adultress! husband-slayer! Strike her, the tigress! Think upon our father Give the sword scope-think what a man was he, That he might gladden and teach us-how proud His joyous head, and calling thee his crown. Bite not thy lip, Nor tramp, as an unsteady colt, the ground, Orestes. Loose me then! for this white hand, Electra, Than I can grasp the sword. It hath creaked thus since he-since thou, O father! Our father: she made thee the scorn of slaves: Me (son of him who ruled this land and more) Would I had been so Oh that Zeus Forever! ere such vengeance Electra. Had let thy arm fall sooner at thy side Without those drops! list! they are audible- Too rash Orestes! Couldst thou not then have spared our wretched mother? Orestes. The gods could not. Orestes. And didst not thou- She was not theirs, Orestes! 'Twas I! 'twas I who did it! Of our unhappy house the most unhappy! 'Tis now my time to suffer Mine be, with all its pangs, the righteous deed! What a picture is that of Agamemnon and his boy, Long may Mr. Landor conceive such pictures, and write such scenes! The days are happily past when the paltry epithet of "Cockney Poets" could be bestowed upon Keats and Leigh Hunt: the world has outlived them. People would as soon think of applying such a word to Dr. Johnson. Happily, too, one of the delightful writers who were the objects of these unworthy attacks has outlived them also; has lived to attain a popularity of the most genial kind, and to diffuse, through a thousand pleasant channels, many of the finest parts of our finest writers. He has done good service to literature in another way, by enriching our language with some of the very best translations since Cowley. Who ever thought to see Tasso's famous passage in the "Amyntas" so rendered? ODE TO THE GOLDEN AGE. O lovely age of gold! Not that the rivers rolled With milk, or that the woods wept honey-dew; Produced without a wound, Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew; Not that a cloudless blue Forever was in sight; Or that the heaven which burns, And now is cold by turns, Looked out in glad and everlasting light; No, nor that even the insolent ships from far Brought war to no new lands, nor riches worse than war. Who, again, ever hoped to see such an English version of one of Petrarch's most characteristic poems, conceits and all? PETRARCH'S CONTEMPLATIONS OF DEATH IN THE BOWER OF LAURA. Clear, fresh, and dulcet streams, Which the fair shape who seems To me sole woman, haunted at noontide; Fair bough, so gently lit, (I sigh to think of it) Which lent a pillar to her lovely side; And turf and flowers bright-eyed, O'er which her folded gown Flowed like an angel's down; And you, O holy air and hushed, Where first my heart at her sweet glances gushed, Give ear, give ear, with one consenting, To my last words, my last, and my lamenting. If 'tis my fate below And heaven will have it so, That love must close these dying eyes in tears, May my poor dust be laid In middle of your shade, While my soul, naked, mounts to its own spheres. The thought would calm my fears When taking, out of breath, The doubtful step of death; For never could my spirit find A stiller port after the stormy wind; Nor in more calm abstracted borne Slip from my traveled flesh, and from my bones outworn. Perhaps, some future hour, To her accustomed bower Might come the untamed, and yet gentle she; And where she saw me first, Might turn with eyes athirst And kinder joy to look again for me; Then, oh the charity! Seeing amidst the stones The earth that held my bones, A sigh for very love at last Might ask of heaven to pardon me the past; And heaven itself could not say nay, As with her gentle vail she wiped the tears away. How well I call to mind, When from those boughs the wind Shook down upon her bosom flower on flower; And there she sat meek-eyed, In midst of all that pride, Sprinkled and blushing through an amorous shower. And seemed to dress the curls Queenlike with gold and pearls; Some snowing on her drapery stopped, Some on the earth, some on the water dropped; While others, fluttering from above, Seemed wheeling round in pomp and saying, "Here reigns love." How often then I said, Inward, and filled with dread, "Doubtless this creature came from paradise!" For at her look the while, Her voice, and her sweet smile And heavenly air, truth parted from mine eyes; So that, with long-drawn sighs, I said, as far from men, "How came I here, and when !" I had forgotten; and alas! Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was; And from that time till this, I bear Such love for the green bower, I can not rest elsewhere. |