She stood, with amazement, Houseless by night. The bleak wind of March Or the black flowing river: In she plunged boldly, Take her up tenderly, Fashioned so slenderly, 1800-1859 THE BATTLE OF IVRY1 (1842) Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are! And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre! Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance; Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France! And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters, 5 Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters. As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy; For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy. Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war! Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry, and King Henry of Young, and so fair! Ere her limbs frigidly cheon in his hand; And, as we look'd on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, Smooth, and compose them; And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; A village in France, where the battle was fought in 1590, between Henry of Navarre the Champion of Protestantism, and the forces of the Roman Catholic "League." 2 A fortified sea-port in France, a stronghold of the Protestants. Appenzell is a double canton in Switzerland, half Protestant, half Roman Catholic. In this passage it is obvious that the Roman Catholics are meant. Count Philip of Egmont, a foremost man in the Spanish army, who commanded a body of Flemish troops. 5 Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, a spy, and agent of Philip II of Spain. Duke of Mayenne, lieutenant-general for the League. 7 A commander's staff. 8 Gaspard of Coligni, the great commander of the Huguenots, was murdered by the Roman Catholics on St. Bartholomew's Eve. The remembrance of that massacre always aroused the opposite party to action. Some murmur when their sky is clear, In their great heaven of blue. James II issued a "Declaration of Indulgence," the object of which was to give the Roman Catholics greater power. He ordered it to be read in the churches. Many of the clergy refused to read this "declaration" and the King threatened to put them in the Tower. Among those who refused was Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, a native of Cornwall. 2 A small, precipitous, and rocky island, crowned by a castle, off the coast of Cornwall. Well, let it take them! What have we to do Edward Fitzgerald, a man of wide and curious learning and fastidious taste, held a unique position among the poets of his time. His original productions were few, and comparatively unimportant; his reputation rests on his work as a translator, and it rests largely on his translation of a single poem. He translated six plays of the Spanish dramatist Calderon; he translated several poems from the Persian, and then, in 1859, he astounded and delighted innumerable readers by his rendering of the "quatrains " of Omar Khayyam. While Fitzgerald lived a most secluded life, he was the warm friend of Tennyson, Thackeray, Spedding, and other eminent men. Tennyson, in dedicating his Tiresias to "Old Fitz," as he calls his life-long friend, declared that he knew no translation in English done "more divinely well" than Fitzgerald's Omar. A poem by Omar Khayyam (i. e. Omar, the Tentmaker) a Persian poet and astronomer of the 11th and 12th centuries. The title of his most fam: us poem refers simply to its poetic form. Rubaiyat is the technical name for a quatrain of a certain metrical character. 3 The birthplace of Omar, in the province of Khorasin, northern Persia. 4 Jamshyd, Kaikobád, and Kaikhosru, were early Persian kings in Firdusi's poem Shahnamah, or epic of kinge. Heroes in Firdusi's great epic. Zál is Rustum's father. The tragic error of Rustum, who unwittingly kills his sor Sohrab, is the theme of Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. Hátim Tai, a type of oriental generosity. THE END OF THE PLAY The play is done; the curtain drops, A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task And, when he's laughed and said his say, One word, ere yet the evening ends, Good night! I'd say, the griefs, the joys, The triumphs and defeats of boys, Your hopes more vain, than those of men; At forty-five played o'er again. 5 10 15 20 25 I'd say, your woes were not less keen, Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen 30 So each shall mourn, in life's advance, Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Come wealth or want, come good or ill, And bear it with an honest heart, Be each, pray God, a gentleman. A gentleman, or old, or young! Upon the first of Christmas days: And peace on earth to gentle men. And wish you health, and joy, and mirth, As fits the holy Christmas birth, Be this, good friends, our carol stillBe peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will. William E. Aytoun 1813-1865 THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE1 I Do not lift him from the bracken, None beseems him half so well 1 The Clan of Macdonald, in the Highland valley of Glencoe, were late in taking the required oath of loyalty to King William III. Under royal warrant a regiment was sent to Glencoe and many of the Macdonalds were treacherously killed. |