And while my youthful peers, before my eyes,
(Each Hero following his peculiar bent)
Prepared themselves for glorious enterprize
By martial sports, —or, seated in the tent,
Chieftains and kings in council were detained;
What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.
The wished-for wind was given :-I then revolved
The oracle, upon the silent sea;
And, if no worthier led the
That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be
The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,--
Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.
Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang
When of thy loss I thought, beloved Wife!
On thee too fondly did my memory hang,
And on the joys we shared in mortal life,
The paths which we had trod-these fountains-flowers; My new-planned Cities, and unfinished Towers.
But should suspense permit the Foe to cry,
"Behold they tremble! -- haughty their array,
Yet of their number no one dares to die?".
In soul I swept the indignity away:
Old frailties then recurred: - but lofty thought,
In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.
And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak
In reason, in self-government too slow;
I counsel thee by fortitude to seek
Our blest re-union in the shades below.
The invisible world with thee hath sympathized;
Be thy affections raised and solemnized.
Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
Towards a higher object.- Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end:
For this the passion to excess was driven —
That self might be annulled; her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."
Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes re-appears!
Round the dear Shade she would have clung-'tis vain:
The hours are past-too brief had they been years;
And him no mortal effort can detain:
Swift, tow'rd the realms that know not earthly day,
He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace floor a lifeless corse she lay.
By no weak pity might the Gods be moved;
She who thus perished not without the crime
Of Lovers that in Reason's spite have loved,
Was doomed to wander in a grosser clime,
Apart from happy Ghosts-that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.
Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes. Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew
From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight!*
*For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, lib. 16. cap. 44.; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus (page 115.) see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Virgil places the Shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy Lovers,
HER eyes are wild, her head is bare, The sun has burnt her coal-black hair; Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a Baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone;
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the green-wood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.
"Sweet Babe! they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely Baby, do not fear!
pray thee have no fear of me,
But, safe as in a cradle, here,
My lovely Baby! thou shalt be:
To thee I know too much I owe ;
I cannot work thee any woe.
A fire was once within my brain;
And in my head a dull, dull pain;
And fiendish faces one, two, three,
Hung at my breast, and pulled at me.
But then there came a sight of joy :
It came at once to do me good;
I waked, and saw my little Boy,
My little Boy of flesh and blood;
Oh joy for me that sight to see!
For he was here, and only he.
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