THE NORMAN BARON. Dans les moments de la vie où la réflexion devient plus calme et plus profonde, où l'intérêt et l' avarice parlent moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin domestique, de maladie, et de péril de mort, les nobles se repentirent de posséder des serfs, comme d' une chose peu agréable à Dieu, qui avait créé tous les hommes à son image.-THIERRY: Conquête de l' Angleterre. In his chamber, weak and dying, In this fight was Death the gainer, And the lands his sires had plundered, By his bed a monk was seated, From the missal on his knee. And, amid the tempest pealing, In the hall, the serf and vassal Held, that night, their Christmas wassail; Sang the minstrels and the waits. And so loud these Saxon gleemen Till at length the lays they chaunted Tears upon his eyelids glistened, Turned his weary head to hear. "Wassail for the kingly stranger, And the lightning showed the sainted In that hour of deep contrition, All the pomp of earth had vanished, Every vassal of his banner, Every serf born to his manor, All those wronged and wretched creatures By his hand were freed again. And as on the sacred missal He recorded their dismissal, Death relaxed his iron features, And the monk replied, "Amen!" Many centuries have been numbered Mingling with the common dust: But the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages, Brighter grows and gleams immortal, THE DAY IS DONE. THE day is done, and the darkness I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist; A feeling of sadness and longing, Come, read to me some poem, Not from the grand old masters, D For, like strains of martial music, Read from some humbler poet, Who, through long days of labour, Such songs have power to quiet Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away. SEAWEED. WHEN descends on the Atlantic Landward in his wrath he scourges Laden with seaweed from the rocks: From Bermuda's reefs; from edges In some far-off, bright Azore; Surges of San Salvador; From the tumbling surf, that buries On the desolate, rainy seas; Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, All have found repose again. So when storms of wild emotion Of the poet's soul, ere long Floats some fragments of a song: From the far-off isles enchanted, With the golden fruit of Truth; In the tropic clime of Youth; From the strong Will, and the Endeavour That for ever Wrestles with the tides of Fate; From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest shattered, Floating waste and desolate; |