AF ARCHILOCHUS. RCHILOCHUS of Paros, in Lydia, is regarded as the first of the Greek lyric poets. His father's name was Telesicles; his mother was a slave called Enips. He was born about 714 B. C. About 676 B. C. he lost his life in battle or by assassination. Variety and satirical bitterness characterized his lyric poems—so much so that "Arcadian bitterness" and Parian heroes became bywords in ancient times. It is said that Lycembes, who had promised his daughter to him in marriage, having failed to fulfil this promise, was so severely satirized by the poet that to escape ridicule both father and daughter hanged themselves. Among the ancients Archilochus was ranked as a poet with Homer. TURNS OF FORTUNE. FROM THE GREEK OF ARCHILOCHUS. Leave the gods to order all things: Often from the gulf of woe They exalt the poor man grov'ling In the gloomy shades belowOften turn again, and prostrate Lay in dust the loftiest head, Dooming him through life to wander 'Reft of sense and wanting bread. Translation of C. A. ELTON. EQUANIMITY. FROM THE GREEK OF ARCHILOCHUS. Spirit, thou spirit, like a troubled sea, WHILE WE LIVE MAKE THE BEST OF LIFE. Wherein people differ is the matter of life; wherein they agree is death. While they are alive, we have the distinctions of intelligence and stupidity, honorableness and meanness; when they are dead, we have so much rottenness decaying away: this is the common lot. Yet intelligence and stupidity, honorableness and meanness, are not in one's power; neither is that condition of putridity, decay and utter disappearance. A man's life is not in his own hands, nor is his death; his intelligence is not his own, nor is his stupidity, nor his honorableness, nor his meanness. All are born and all die-the intelligent and the stupid, the honorable and the mean. At ten years old some die; at a hundred years old some die. The virtuous and the sage die; the ruffian and the fool also die. Alive, they were Yaou and Shun; dead, they were so much rotten bone. Who could know any difference between their rotten bones? While alive, therefore, let us hasten to make the best If conquering, vaunt not in vainglorious of life. What leisure have we to be think show; ing of anything after death? If conquered, stoop not, prostrated in woe; Translation of James Legge, D D. LOVE. HERE lived a singer in France | For gifts she gave you, gracious and few, of old By the tideless, dolorous In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman, and none but she. And finding life for her love's Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I— There is not room under all the sky For me that know not of worst or best, Being fain to see her, he bade Love will not come to me now, though I die, set sail, These were a part of the playing I heard Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, Balm of the wound and heft of the knife. Fairer than the earth is the sea, and sleep Than overwatching of eyes that weep, Now Time has done with his one sweet word The wine and leaven of lovely life. I shall go my ways, tread out my measure, Do as the world doth, say as it saith; The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure To feel you tread it to dust and death Ah! had I not taken my life up and given All that life gives and the years let go, The wine and money, the balm and leaven, The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low: Come life, come death, not a word be said; Should I lose you living, and vex you dead? I shall never tell you on earth, and in heaven, If I cry to you then, will you hear or know? ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. PROLOGUE TO THOMSON'S "CORI OLANUS." NOT one immoral, one corrupted thought, One line which, dying, he could wish to blot. LORD LYTTELTON. She watched the sky: the sunset grew dim; And then, like a bird escaped from the snare, She stood beneath the mangoes' shade, She trimmed the lamp and breathed on each bloom Oh, that breath was sweeter than all their perfume Threw spices and oil on the spire of flame, There are a thousand fanciful things A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign, And Zaide hath forgotten in Azim's arms All her so false lamp's falser alarms. This looks not a bridal: the singers are mute; How the pulses will beat and the cheek will Still is the mandore and breathless the lute; be dyed When they have some love-augury tried: years, To feel again youth's hopes and fears- Zaide watched her flower-built vessel glide, No dew is falling; yet woe to that shade! Hark to the ring of the cimetar! It tells that the soldier returns from afar; And raised it to look on its father's crest; and song, Yet there the bride sits. Her dark hair is bound, And the robe of her marriage floats white on the ground. Oh, where is the lover, the bridegroom? oh, where? Look under yon black pall: the bridegroom is there; Yet the guests are all bidden, the feast is the same, And the bride plights her troth amid smoke and 'mid flame. They have raised the death-pyre of sweetscented wood And sprinkled it o'er with the sacred flood Of the Ganges. The priests are assembled; their song Sinks deep on the ear as they bear her along, That bride of the dead. Ay, is not this love, That one pure, wild feeling all others above, Vowed to the living and kept to the tomb, The same in its blight as it was in its bloom? With no tear in her eye and no change in her smile Young Zaide had come nigh to the funeral pile; The bells of the dancing-girls ceased from their sound; Silent they stood by that holiest mound; From a crowd like the sea-waves there came not a breath When the maiden stood by the place of death. One moment was given the last she might | There white-haired urchins climb his eaves,' And little watch-fires heap with leaves, spare To the mother, who stood in her weeping there. She took the jewels that shone on her hand, She took from her dark hair its flowery band, And scattered them round. At once they raise The hymn of rejoicing and love in her praise. The breeze had spread the long curls of her hair; Like a banner of fire, they played on the air; The smoke and the flame gathered round as before, Then cleared, but the bride was seen no And milky filberts hoard; And there his oldest daughter stands With downcast eyes and skilful hands Before her ironing-board. She comforts all her mother's days, And with her sweet obedient ways She makes her labors light; So sweet to hear, so fair to see, Oh, she is much too good for me, That lovely Lettice White. 'Tis hard to feel one's self a fool! With that same lass I went to school: |