'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.'

'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
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.'

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

The man went in. There was a cry, and hark!
A table falls, the window is struck dark;

Forth rush the breathless women, and behind
With curses comes the fiend in desperate mind.
In vain the sabres soon cut short the strife,

And chop the shrieking wretch, and drink his bloody life.

'Now light the light,' the Sultan cried aloud.
'Twas done; he took it in his hand and bow'd
Over the corpse, and look'd upon the face;
Then turn'd and knelt beside it in the place,
And said a prayer, and from his lips there crept
Some gentle words of pleasure, and he wept.

In reverent silence the spectators wait,

Then bring him at his call both wine and meat;
And when he had refresh'd his noble heart,
He bade his host be blest, and rose up to depart.

The man amaz'd, all mildness now and tears,
Fell at the Sultan's feet with many prayers,
And begg'd him to vouchsafe to tell his slave,
The reason first of that command he gave
About the light: then when he saw the face,
Why he knelt down; and lastly how it was
That fare so poor as his detain'd him in the place.

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
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

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

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,

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.