She's at the window many an hour
His coming to discover:

And he looked up to Ellen's bower
And she looked on her lover-

But ah! so pale, he knew her not,
Though her smile on him was dwelling!
And am I then forgot-forgot?

It broke the heart of Ellen.

In vain he weeps, in vain he sighs,

Her cheek is cold as ashes;

Nor love's own kiss shall wake those eyes To lift their silken lashes.

CHARLES LAMB

1775-1835

HESTER

WHEN maidens such as Hester die,
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try
With vain endeavour.

A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate

Of pride and joy no common rate
That flushed her spirit:

I know not by what name beside

I shall it call: if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied

She did inherit.

Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool; But she was trained in Nature's school, Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind,

A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

My sprightly neighbour! gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,

Some summer morning-
When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet fore-warning?

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM

1784-1842

A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA

A WET sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast

And fills the white and rustling sail

And bends the gallant mast;

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While like the eagle free

Away the good ship flies, and leaves

Old England on the lee.

O for a soft and gentle wind!

I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze

And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my lads,

The good ship tight and free-
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon horned moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
But hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud;
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashes free-
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.

GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON

1788-1823

THE ISLES OF GREECE

THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;

Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.'

The mountains look on Marathon,

And Marathon looks on the sea;

And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not think myself a slave.

A king sate on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men in nations;-all were his!

He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore

The heroic lay is tuneless now

The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Though linked among a fettered race

To feel at least a patriot's shame,

Even as I sing, suffuse my face;

For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!

What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, 'Let one living head, But one, arise,-we come, we come!' "Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain-in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call-
How answers each bold bacchanal!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

We will not think of themes like these!

It made Anacreon's song divine:

He served-but served Polycrates

A tyrant; but our masters then

Were still, at least, our countrymen.