SONNET. (FROM THE PORTuguese of semEDO.) Ir is a fearful night; a feeble glare Streams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky; Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare; No bark the madness of the waves will dare; The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high; Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die, Who gazes on thy smiles while I despair? To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light, I never saw so beautiful a night. IOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY (FROM PEYRE VIDAL, THE TROUBAdour.) THE earth was sown with early flowers, As lovely as the light. I knew him not-but in my His graceful image lies, heart And well I marked his open brow, His sweet and tender eyes, With leaves and blossoms mixed. He wore a chaplet of the rose, Was marked with many an ebon spot, His housings sapphire stone, And brightly in his stirrup glanced 152 LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY. Fast rode the gallant cavalier, As youthful horsemen ride; The blooming stranger cried; A dame of high degree; THE LOVE OF GOD. (FROM THE PROVENSAL OF BERNARD RASCAS.) ALL things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. The forms of men shall be as they had never been; The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green; The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song, And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long. The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills, And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills. The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox, The wild-boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks, And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie; And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die. And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more, And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore; And the great globe itself (so the holy writings tell), With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell, Shall melt with fervent heat-they shall all pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. THE HURRICANE. LORD of the winds! I feel thee nigh, I know thy breath in the burning sky! And I wait, with a thrill in every vein, For the coming of the hurricane! And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales, Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails ; The mighty shadow is borne along, While the world below, dismayed and dumb, They darken fast-and the golden blaze Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze, And he sends through the shade a funeral ray— A glare that is neither night nor day, A beam that touches, with hues of death, The clouds above and the earth beneath. And the forests hear and answer the sound. |