Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

THE LAST CONQUEROR

Victorious men of earth, no more
Proclaim how wide your empires are;
Though you bind-in every shore
And your triumphs reach as far
As night or day,

Yet you, proud monarchs, must obey
And mingle with forgotten ashes, when
Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.

Devouring Famine, Plague, and War,
Each able to undo mankind,
Death's servile emissaries are;
Nor to these alone confined,
He hath at will

More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,

Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart.

James Shirley

THE BUBBLE

This Life, which seems so fair,

Is like a bubble blown up in the air

By sporting children's breath,

Who chase it everywhere

And strive who can most motion it bequeath.

And though it sometimes seem of its own might Like to an eye of gold to be fix'd there,

And firm to hover in that empty height,

That only is because it is so light.

- But in that pomp it doth not long appear; For when 'tis most admired, in a thought, Because it erst was nought, it turns to nought. William Drummond

MY DAYS AMONG THE DEAD

My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:

My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;

And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,

My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,

And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;

Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

Robert Southey

Motherwell

TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears;

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

A. E. Housman

[blocks in formation]

MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE

to die!

My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground
Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see,
But none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf

That trembles in the moon's pale ray;
Its hold is frail, — its date is brief,
and soon to pass away!

Restless,

Yet ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree,-
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea,
But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

[ocr errors]

Richard Henry Wilde

« НазадПродовжити »