English

I BERRY'S HILL

Who gave this spot the name of Berry's Hill?
I know not, and in sooth care not to know;
For names, like fashions, often come and go
By mere caprice of arbitrary will;
But 'tis a lovely spot — enough of skill
Hath been employ'd to make it lovelier show,
Yet not enough for art to overthrow
What Nature meant should be her livery still.

BOOK III. — OLYMPUS.

But while I stood
Expectant, lo! a fair pale form drew near
With front severe, and wide blue eyes which bore
Mild wisdom in their gaze. Clear purity
Shone from her — not the young-eyed innocence
Of her whom first I saw, but that which comes
From wider knowledge, which restrains the tide
Of passionate youth, and leads the musing soul
By the calm deeps of Wisdom. And I knew
My eyes had seen the fair, the virgin Queen,
Who once within her shining Parthenon

BOOK II — HADES.

Next I saw
A youth who pensive leaned against the trunk
Of a dark cypress, and an idle flute
Hung at his side. A sorrowful sad soul,
Such as sometimes he knows, who meets the gaze,
Mute, uncomplaining yet most pitiful,
Of one whom Nature, by some secret spite
Has maimed and left imperfect; or the pain
Which fills a poet's eyes. Beneath his robe
I seemed to see the scar of cruel stripes,
Too hastily concealed. Yet was he not
Wholly unhappy, but from out the core

BOOK I — TARTARUS.

" I N the old man's eyes
A watery gleam of malice played awhile —
I hate him for it — and he bade his son,
Yoking his three young fiery colts, drive forth
His chariot on the sand.
And still the storm
Blew fiercer and more fierce, and the white crests
Plunged on the strand, and the loud promontories
Thundered back repercussive, and a mist
Of foam, torn landward, hid the sounding shore.

And now the climax of it all,
We yield to a familiar thrall.
Here's Portia, here fair Rosalind,
Gay Beatrice, and Kate unkind;
Olivia whose tender folly
Immortalized a sprig of holly —
Ah! be they sad or sweet, or merry,
All, all are you , dear Ellen Terry!

Creator, of a smile, a sigh —
You gave us Madame Butterfly.

Heredity, the spectre of the past,
Ghost of the present,
Claims its own at last;
Ghosts of the future,
Lo! the child unborn
Yields its fair birthright
To a fate forlorn.

When Dixey in Adonis plays,
All hearts would sing their lightest lays,
For who could frown or who would sigh,
Or feel the world had gone awry —
When, luring us to happy ways,
Our Dixey in Adonis plays!

You, Marie Doro, do for us restore
Poor little Oliver who " wanted more. "
Plaintive, pathetic youth foregone and missed,
Oh! sad anomaly, a child unkissed!

Did ye ken our Rose as the Lady Gay,
Have ye heard her tell how she rode away,
To the crack of the whip at the break of day,
With the horse and the hounds in the morning?
Oh! the sound of the horn on the echoing hill,
And the cry of the pack as they ran at will,
And our dear Lady Gay, — I can hear her still,
As she told of the hunt in the morning.