MAY.

109

MAY.

BY J. G. PERCIVAL.

I FEEL a newer life in every gale;
The winds, that fan the flowers,

And with their welcome breathings fill the sail,
Tell of serener hours,

Of hours that glide unfelt away

Beneath the sky of May.

The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls

From his blue throne of air,

And where his whispering voice in music falls, Beauty is budding there;

The bright ones of the valley break

Their slumbers and awake.

The waving verdure rolls along the plain,
And the wide forest weaves,

To welcome back its playful mates again,
A canopy of leaves;

And from its darkening shadow floats
A gush of trembling notes.

Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May;
The tresses of the woods,

With the light dallying of the west-wind play,
And the full-brimming floods,

As gladly to their goal they run,
Hail their returning sun.

110

THE GLADIATOR.

THE GLADIATOR.

BY J. A. JONES.

THEY led a lion from his den,

The lord of Afric's sun-scorched plain;
And there he stood, stern foe of men,
And shook his flowing mane.

There's not of all Rome's heroes, ten
That dare abide this game.

His bright eye naught of lightning lacked;
His voice was like the cataract.

They brought a dark-haired man along,

Whose limbs with gyves of brass were bound; Youthful he seemed, and bold, and strong,

And yet unscathed of wound.

Blithely he stepped among the throng,

And careless threw around

A dark eye, such as courts the path
Of him, who braves a Dacian's wrath.

Then shouted the plebeian crowd-
Rung the glad galleries with the sound;
And from the throne there spake aloud
A voice, 'Be the bold man unbound!
And, by Rome's sceptre yet unbowed,
By Rome, earth's monarch crowned,
Who dares the bold-the unequal strife,
Though doomed to death, shall save his life.'

THE GLADIATOR.

Joy was upon that dark man's face,
And thus, with laughing eye, spake he,
'Loose ye the lord of Zara's waste,
And let my arms be free;

"He has a martial heart," thou sayest,
But oh, who will not be

A hero, when he fights for life,

And home, and country,-babes, and wife.

And thus I for the strife prepare ;
The Thracian falchion to me bring;
But ask the imperial leave to spare
The shield-a useless thing.
Were I a Samnite's rage to dare,
Then o'er me should I fling

The broad orb; but to lion's wrath
The shield were but a sword of lath.'

And he has bared his shining blade,
And springs he on the shaggy foe;
Dreadful the strife, but briefly played-
The desert-king lies low,

His long and loud death-howl is made,
And there must end the show.

And when the multitude were calm,
The favorite freedman took the palm.

'Kneel down, Rome's emperor beside:'
He knelt, that dark man ;-o'er his brow
Was thrown a wreath in crimson died,
And fair words gild it now:

111

112

THE GLADIATOR.

"Thou 'rt the bravest youth that ever tried To lay a lion low;

And from our presence forth thou go'st
To lead the Dacians of our host.'

Then flushed his cheek, but not with pride,
And grieved and gloomily spoke he:
'My cabin stands where blithely glide
Proud Danube's waters to the sea;
I have a young and blooming bride,
And I have children three;

No Roman wealth nor rank can give
Such joy, as in their arms to live.

'My wife sits at the cabin door,

With throbbing heart and swollen eyes;
While tears her cheek are coursing o'er,

She speaks of sundered ties.

She bids my tender babes deplore
The death their father dies;
She tells these jewels of my home,
I bleed to please the rout of Rome.

'I cannot let these cherubs stray
Without their sire's protecting care;
And I would chase the griefs away
Which cloud my wedded fair.'
The monarch spoke, the guards obey,
And gates unclosed are;

He is gone-no golden bribes divide

The Dacian from his babes and bride.

DIRGE OF ALARIC.

113

DIRGE OF ALARIC.

BY E. EVERETT.

Alaric the Visigoth stormed and spoiled the city of Rome, and was afterwards buried in the channel of the river Busentius, the water of which had been diverted from its course that the body might be interred.

WHEN I am dead, no pageant train

Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear;
For I will die as I did live,
Nor take the boon I cannot give.

Ye shall not raise a marble bust
Upon the spot where I repose;
Ye shall not fawn before my dust,

In hollow circumstance of woes;
Nor sculptured clay, with lying breath,
Insult the clay that moulds beneath.

Ye shall not pile, with servile toil,
Your monuments upon my breast,
Nor yet within the common soil

Lay down the wreck of power to rest;
Where man can boast that he has trod
On him that was 'the scourge of God.'