'Sorrow,' said Mahmoud, 'is a reverend thing: My bed :—I have two daughters and a wife, And the wild villain comes and makes me mad with life.' 'Is he there now?' said Mahmoud. 'No, he left And Oh, thou Sultan Mahmoud, God cries out for thee!' The Sultan comforted the man and said, 'Go home, and I will send thee wine and bread, (For he was poor,) and other comforts. Go; And should the wretch return let Sultan Mahmoud know.' In two days' time, with haggard eyes and beard, The man went in. There was a cry, and hark! Forth rush the breathless women, and behind And chop the shrieking wretch, and drink his bloody life. 'Now light the light,' the Sultan cried aloud. In reverent silence the spectators wait, Then bring him at his call both wine and meat; The man amaz'd, all mildness now and tears, The Sultan said, with much humanity, 'Since first I heard thee come, and heard thy cry, I could not rid me of a dread that one By whom such daring villanies were done, Must be some lord of mine, perhaps a lawless son. Whoe'er he was, I knew my task, but fear'd The first time since thou cam'st and marr'd'st my solitude.' L. Hunt XCVI A Dirge The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying; And the year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead Is lying. Come, Months, come away, In your saddest array,— Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling For the year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone To his dwelling. Put on white, black, and grey; Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. P. B. Shelley XCVII THE RAVEN Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "Tis some visitor,' I mutter'd, 'tapping at my chamber door Only this and nothing more.' Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor Eagerly I wish'd the morrow ;—vainly had I sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrill'd me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ; This it is, and nothing more. Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, 'Sir,' said I, or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you ;' here I open'd wide the door ; Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whisper'd word Lenore!' This I whisper'd, and an echo murmur'd back the word 'Lenore'- Merely this, and nothing more. |