n from these lofty thoughts I woke,
at is it?' said I, 'that you bear
ath the covert of your cloak,

ected from this cold damp air?'

answered, soon as she the question heard, ple burthen, Sir, a little singing bird.'

thus continuing, she said,

d a son, who many a day

1 on the seas, but he is dead; enmark he was cast away:

I have travelled weary miles to see

t that he had owned might still remain for me.

bird and cage they both were his :

s my son's bird; and neat and trim ept it: many voyages

singing bird had gone with him;

n last he sailed, he left the bird behind; bodings, as might be, that hung upon his mind.'

W. Wordsworth

XCV

MAHMOUD

■ere came a man, making his hasty moan
fore the Sultan Mahmoud on his throne,
ad crying out—' My sorrow is my right,
ad I will see the Sultan, and to-night.'

'Sorrow,' said Mahmoud, 'is a reverend thing:
I recognise its right as king with king;
Speak on.' 'A fiend has got into my house,'
Exclaim'd the staring man, and tortures us:
One of thine officers ;-he comes, the abhorr'd,
And takes possession of my house, my board,
My bed :-I have two daughters and a wife,
And the wild villain comes and makes me mad with
life.'

The ma A table Forth With c

In vain

And ch

And hear a voice and see a female face,
That to the window flutter'd in affright.

In two days' time, with haggard eyes and beard,
And shaken voice, the suitor re-appeared,
And said, 'He's come.'-Mahmoud said not a word,
But rose and took four slaves each with a sword,
And went with the vext man. They reach the place,

'Now

'Twas

'Is he there now?' said Mahmoud. 'No, he left
The house when I did, of my wits bereft ;
And laugh'd me down the street because I vow'd

Over t

Then

I'd bring the prince himself to lay him in his shroud.
I'm mad with want, I'm mad with misery,

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.'

And s

Some

In re Then

And

He b

The

Fell

And

The

Abo

Wh

Tha

The

'Si

I со

'Go in,' said Mahmoud, and put out the light;
But tell the females first to leave the room;
And when the drunkard follows them, we come.

By

Mu

n went in. There was a cry, and hark! falls, the window is struck dark;

ush the breathless women, and behind rses comes the fiend in desperate mind. : the sabres soon cut short the strife,

Op the shrieking wretch, and drink his bloody fe.

Eght the light,' the Sultan cried aloud.
one; he took it in his hand and bow'd
e corpse, and look'd upon the face;
rn'd and knelt beside it in the place,
d a prayer, and from his lips there crept
entle words of pleasure, and he wept.

rent silence the spectators wait,

ring him at his call both wine and meat;
en he had refresh'd his noble heart,
Le his host be blest, and rose up to depart.

ɩn amaz'd, all mildness now and tears, the Sultan's feet with many prayers, gg'd him to vouchsafe to tell his slave, ison first of that command he gave the light then when he saw the face, e knelt down; and lastly how it was ire so poor as his detain'd him in the place.

ltan said, with much humanity,

first I heard thee come, and heard thy cry,

I not rid me of a dread that one

om such daring villanies were done,

be some lord of mine, perhaps a lawless

son.

Whoe'er he was, I knew my task, but fear'd
A father's heart, in case the worst appear’d.
For this I had the light put out. But when
I saw the face and found a stranger slain,
I knelt and thank'd the sovereign arbiter,
Whose work I had perform'd through pain and fear.
And then I rose and was refresh'd with food,
The first time since thou cam'st and marr'd'st my
solitude.'

L. Hunt

And make

XCVI
AUTUMN
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,

From November to May,

In your saddest array,—
Follow the bier

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

Once upo

we

Over mar

lo

While I

Ca

As of

"Tis

Ah,

And

Eag

Fro

Fo

gone

To his dwelling.

Come, Months, come away;

Put on white, black, and grey;
Let your light sisters play;
Ye, follow the bier

Of the dead cold year,

e her grave green with tear on tear.

P. B. Shelley

XCVII

THE RAVEN

on a midnight dreary, while I pondered, eak and weary,

ny a quaint and curious volume of forgotten

re,.

nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there me a tapping

ome one gently rapping, rapping at my namber door.

ome visitor,' I mutter'd, 'tapping at my amber door

Only this and nothing more.'

tinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

ch separate dying ember wrought its ghost pon the floor

I wish'd the morrow ;-vainly had I sought o borrow

ny books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the Lost Lenore

è rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore

Nameless here for evermore.