FEAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go :

For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And made me creep past.

THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

93

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness, and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

The black minute's at end,

And the elements rage, the fiend voices that rave Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace, then a joy,

Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest!

Robert Browning.

THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

(CORONACH.)

He is gone on the mountain,

He is lost to the forest,

Like a summer-dried fountain

When our need was the sorest.

94

THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

The font, re-appearing,

From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,

To Duncan no morrow!

The hand of the reaper

Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory;
The autumn winds rushing,

Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing,
When blighting was nearest.

Fleet foot on the correi,

Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,

How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,

Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone and for ever!

Sir Walter Scott.

FULL of long-sounding corridors it was,
That over-vaulted grateful gloom,
Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass,
Well-pleased, from room to room.

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,
All various, each a perfect whole

From living Nature, fit for every mood
And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer morn,

Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn.

96

THE PALACE OF ART.

One seem'd all dark and red-a tract of sand,
And some one pacing there alone,

Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low large moon.

One show'd an iron coast and angry waves,
You seemed to hear them climb and fall,
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall.

And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,

The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain.

Behind

And one the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves.
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary to the wind.

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond, a line of heights, and higher

All barred with long white cloud the scornful crags,

And highest, snow and fire.