English

To horse! to horse! my coal-black steed
Paws the ground and snuffs the air!
There's not a foal of Arab's breed
More knows whom he must bear;
On the hill he will not tire,
Swifter as it waxes higher;
In the marsh he will not slacken,
On the plain be overtaken;
In the wave he will not sink,

A DRAMA

PART I

Scene I

A Forest. Enter A RNOLD and his mother B ERTHA .

Bert. O UT , hunchback!
Arn. I was born so, mother!
Bert. Out,
Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons,
The sole abortion!
Arn. Would that I had been so,
And never seen the light!
Bert. I would so too!

CI
And when like her, Oh Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!

C
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden--and for one in vain!

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things Entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

XCVIII
Would but some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!

XCVII
Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, revealed,
To which the fainting Traveler might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

XCV
And much as Wine has played the Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honor--Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.

XCIV
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.