EMPLOYMENT.— George Herbert. IF, as a flower doth spread and die, The sweetness and the praise were thine; But the extension and the room, Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine At thy great doom. For as thou dost impart thy grace, The measure of our joys is in this place, Let me not languish, then, and spend As is the dust, to which that life doth tend, All things are busy; only I Neither bring honey with the bees, Nor flowers to make that, nor the husbandry To water these. I am no link of thy great chain, But all my company is as a weed. Lord, place me in thy concert, give one strain To my porr reed. THE ISLES OF GREECE. - Byron. THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece ! The Scian and the Teian Muse, The mountains look on Marathon, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; 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, 'T is something, in the dearth of fame, For Greeks a blush,- for Greece a tear. Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no; the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, 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! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave, Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! He served but served Polycrates A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend ; That tyrant was Miltiades! O, that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Such as the Doric mothers bore; Trust not for freedom to the Franks, They have a king who buys and sells. In native swords and native ranks The only hope of courage dwells; Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, There, swan-like, let me sing and die. EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY. — Wordsworth. "WHY, William, on that old gray stone, "Where are your books? that light bequeathed To beings else forlorn and blind! Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed "You look round on your mother earth, One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, "The eye, it cannot choose but see; |