Λυκίδας.*

ΝΕΙΚΕΟΜΕΣ ποταμὸν τὸν ἀμείλιχον ὃς κατέδυσε
πασίφιλον πικροῖς † κύμασιν ήίθεον·
δόξασκεν ποταμὸς δ' ἄρ ̓ ἀναιδὴς ἄντιον ἄμμιν
ἀπύειν, ἀδινᾷ φρικὶ κυλινδόμενος,

“ ὦ ξένε, μή μ' ἄγαν ὧδε καθάπτεο κερτομίοισι
ζωὰν ὃς Λυκίδᾳ δῶκα καὶ οὐ θανάτον·
τῷ θανάτωσα δέμας, ψυχὰν δέ οἱ οὐ θανάτωσα,
ἧκα δὲ πὰρ ποταμοῖς ναίεμεν Ηλυσίοις·
τῶν λοῦται Λυκίδας, πίνει δὲ φερέσβιον ὕδωρ
ἀντιλαβὼν ὀλοῶ πώματος ἀμβρόσια.”

* “ Thus sang the uncouth swain . . . warbling his Doric lay.” MILTON, Lycidas.

+ Salt.

1870.

HELICÈ.

TO-NIGHT beneath the winter sky

I stood with none but Love anigh; I stood, sweet heart, and strove a task to master Love bade me try.

The circling firmament bedight

With all the pure-eyed gems of night
I scanned to find thy radiant virgin emblem,

My life's dear light.

A planet in the silver west

Threw forth a splendour manifest

From out the lucent throng, and seemed to bid me There end my quest.

"Not thee, sweet visitant," I said,

"Though with a tenfold brilliance fed From thy heaven's viewless empyrean altar, My choice shall wed.

“No

Not common thus to glancing eyes

The lustre in my love that lies:

He that would know her full serene effulgence
Heavenward must rise.

"Thou unto other climes wilt flee,
Faithless, for others' gaze, but she,
For ever constant, radiance never changing
Sheds down on me."

So to those steadfast spheres my sight Turned, that, more distant, lend the night A glory seeming but from earth the fainterIn heaven more bright.

There saw I that fair northern star*

Which first through all the angry war Of winds and waves brought safe the old Phoenician To lands afar.

Then cared no more my straining gaze To wander through the argent maze, But with an instant certainty I mirrored Thee in those rays;

* Called by the Greeks “Helicè.”

Who with thy own pure beacon-light

Ever through trouble's darksome night Of driving storm and drifting current keepest My course aright.

To-night, beneath the winter sky,

I won this quest Love made me try

Of thee, sweet heart, the Love that cannot perish, Though Time may die.

1870.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.

I.

THY race

Is nearly ended, and yet all too slow
For us thou travelest, we'd have thee go

With faster pace.

Dost hear

The clanging bells thy lingering footsteps flout? "Die out, Old Year," they cry "Old Year, die out; Dost hear, Old Year?

And we

We bid thee learn the lesson that they chime :
Die out, Old Year, give place to a new time;
We are weary of thee.

For thought

Grows sick in us, and our life's hope decays,
Counting the sinning and the sorrowing days
That thou hast brought.

رو