"AH, WOE IS ME FOR PLEASURE THAT IS VAIN, AH, WOE IS ME FOR GLORY THAT IS PAST :-(c. ROSSETTI)
But now, in fatal desolation laid,
Oblivion o'er it draws a dismal shade.
Then further westward, on Morea's land,
Fair Misitra! thy modern turrets stand:
Ah! who unmoved with secret woe, can tell
That there great Lacedæmon's glory fell!
Here once she flourished, at whose trumpet's sound
War burst his chains, and nations shook around;
Here brave Leonidas* from shore to shore,
Through all Achaia, bade her thunders roar ;
the useful and elegant arts; invented numbers, the chariot, the trumpet,
and navigation; and was, in fact, recognized as the goddess of wisdom and
knowledge.
* Who does not know the story of Leonidas, the Spartan king;-how
with a small body of Spartans he held the narrow pass of Thermopyla
against the Persian host, and by his valour stimulated the enthusiasm of
Greece, and afforded its children time to rally to the defence of their
country? This famous event occurred in B. C. 480.
"A CHANCE MAY WIN THAT BY MISCHANCE WAS LOST."-SOUTHWELL.
WORDS, WHICH ARE BUT PICTURES OF THE THOUGHT."-COWLEY.
PLEASURE THAT BRINGETH SORROW AT THE LAST, GLORY THAT AT THE LAST BRINGETH NO GAIN!"-C. ROSSETTI.
"THERE ARE IN ILLS BUT WHAT WE MAKE BY GIVING SHAPES AND NAMES TO THINGS ;
BEAUTY IS ITS OWN EXCUSE FOR BEING."-R. W. EMERSON.
He, when imperial Xerxes from afar
Advanced with Persia's sumless hosts to war,
Till Macedonia shrunk beneath his spear,
And Greece dismayed beheld the chief draw near;
He, at Thermopyla's immortal plain,
His force repelled with Sparta's glorious train;
Tall Eta saw the tyrant's conquered bands
In gasping millions bleed on hostile lands:
Thus vanquished Asia, trembling, heard thy name,
And Thebes and Athens sickened at thy fame;
Thy State, supported by Lycurgus' * laws,
Gained, like thine arms, superlative applause;
Even great Epaminondas † strove in vain
To curb thy spirit with a Theban chain :
But ah! how low that free-born spirit now!
Thy abject sons to haughty tyrants bow;
A false, degenerate, superstitious race,
Infest thy region, and thy name disgrace.
Westward of these, beyond the isthmus, lies
The long-sought Isle of Ithacus the wise ;
Where fair Penelope, ‡ her absent lord,
Full twice ten years, with faithful love deplored.
* Lycurgus, the legislator of Sparta, flourished in the ninth century be-
fore Christ. After imposing his laws on his countrymen, he made them
swear not to make any alteration in them until his return, and immediately
withdrew from Sparta to finish his life in voluntary exile. "Where and
how he died, nobody could tell. He vanished from the earth like a god,
leaving no traces behind but his spirit; and he was honoured as a god at
Sparta with a temple and yearly sacrifices down to the latest times.”
+ Epaminondas was a Theban general of splendid ability. He won the
great battle of Leuctra, in which the Spartans suffered a most severe and
crushing defeat; and in B. C. 362 crowned his fame by the remarkable vic-
tory of Mantineia, in which, however, he received a mortal wound. He
was buried on the battle-field.
Penelope is reputed to have been the wife of Odysseus (or Ulysses),
king of Ithaca, who accompanied the Greeks to Troy, served in the ten
years' war against that city, and afterwards wandered over sea and land
for a protracted period. There were many suitors for Penelope's hand, but
"O DEATH IN LIFE, THE DAYS THAT ARE no more."-TENNYSON.
WHICH IS THE DANGEROUS MISTAKE THAT CAUSES ALL OUR SUFFERINGS."-C. COTTON.
"WHERE ART THOU, BELOVED TO-MORROW?
WHEN YOUNG AND OLD, AND STRONG AND WEAK,
"IT IS THE END THAT CROWNS US, NOT THE FIGHT."-R. HERRICK.
Though many a princely heart her beauty won,
She, guarded only by a stripling son,
Each bold attempt of suitor-kings repelled,
And undefiled the nuptial contract held;
With various arts to win her love they toiled,
But all their wiles by virtuous fraud she foiled;
True to her vows, and resolutely chaste,
The beauteous princess triumphed at the last.
Argos, in Greece forgotten and unknown,
Still seems her cruel fortune to bemoan;
she remained faithful to her husband's memory, and eventually was re-
warded by his return to Ithaca.
66 THE WORLD KNOWS NOTHING OF ITS GREATEST MEN."-H. TAYLOR.
RICH AND POOR, THROUGH JOY AND SORROW, THY SWEET SMILES WE EVER SEEK."-P. B. SHELLEY.
"IT IS A SWEET THING, FRIENDSHIP, A DEAR BALM, A HAPPY AND AUSPICIOUS BIRD OF CALM;-(P. B. SHELLEY.
MEN ARE THE sport of CIRCUMSTANCES, WHEN-(BYRON)
Argos, whose monarch* led the Grecian hosts
Across the Ægean main to Dardan coasts:
Unhappy prince! who on a hostile shore,
Toil, peril, anguish, ten long winters bore;
And when to native realms restored at last,
To reap the harvest of thy labours past,
There found a perjured friend, and faithless wife,
Who sacrificed to impious lust thy life :
Fast by Arcadia stretch these desert plains,
And o'er the land a gloomy tyrant reigns.
[WILLIAM FALCONER, one of the self-taught men who have risen to
eminence in our English literature, was the son of an Edinburgh wig-
maker, and born on the 11th of February 1732. His life was chiefly spent
on board ship, and the experience he thus acquired, and the scenes he wit-
nessed, form the subject-matter of his fine poem of "The Shipwreck," pub-
lished in May 1762. He afterwards compiled a work of very different
character, but, of its kind, of not inferior value, the well-known "Marine
Dictionary." In 1769 he was appointed purser of the Aurora frigate,
bound for East India on an important mission, but which never reached her
destination. She is believed to have been wrecked in the Mozambique
Channel-probably in January 1770.]
* Agamemnon, king of Argos, was appointed generalissimo of the Greek army which waged the famous ten years' war against Troy-the subject of Homer's "Iliad." On his return home he was murdered by his treacherous friend Ægisthus, and his false wife Clytemnestra.
THE CIRCUMSTANCES SEEM THE SPORT OF MEN."-BYRON.
A FLOWER WHICH FRESH AS LAPLAND ROSES ARE, LIFTS ITS BOLD HEAD INTO THE WORLD'S PURE AIR."-SHELLEY,
"A BLINK OF REST'S A SWEET ENJOYMENT."-BURNS.
THE PEASANT'S EVENING PRAYER.
O make a happy fireside clime,
To weans and wife
That's the true pathos and sublime
[ROBERT BURNS, 1754-1796, like Cowper, commands our interest by his misfortunes as well as our admiration by his genius. He is the greatest of modern Scottish poets, though he left behind him no sublime epic or majestic drama. His songs, however, are 'gems of purest ray serene;" and his "Tam O'Shanter," "All Hallowe'en," and "Cotter's Saturday Night," are splendid examples of his versatility.]
"PLEASURES ARE LIKE POPPIES SPREAD-YOU SEIZE THE FLOWER, ITS BLOOM IS SHED"-BURNS);
"OR LIKE THE SNOWFALL IN THE RIVER-A MOMENT WHITE, THEN GONE FOR EVER."-BURNS.
THE PEASANT'S EVENING PRAYER.
JHE cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride :
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets* wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He walest a portion with judicious care;
And, "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps "Dundee's” wild, warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name ;
Or noble "Elgin" beets the heav'nward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays;
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
* Lyart haffets-gray locks over the temples.
Beets-feeds, or stimulates.
66 LOSSES AND CROSSES BE LESSONS RIGHT SEVERE."-BURNS.
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