In vain-in vain strike other chords; And shed the blood of Scio's vine! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one! You have the letters Cadmus gaveThink you he meant them for a slave? Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! It made Anacreon's song divine: 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! Oh! 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- Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Place me on Sunium's marbled steepWhere nothing save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine! KEATS FROM "ISABEL ' FAIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel ! Lorenzo, a young palmer in love's eye! They could not in the self-same mansion dwell Without some stir of heart, some malady; They could not sit at meals but feel how well It soothed each to be the other by ; They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep But to each other dream, and nightly weep. With every morn their love grew tenderer, ; To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill Her lute-string gave an echo of his name, She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same. He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch, With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt, To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood. For them the Ceylon diver held his breath, And went all naked to the hungry shark; For them his ears gushed blood; for them in death A thousand men in troubles wide and dark: away, In the mid-days of Autumn, on their eves Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale; And every night in dreams they groaned aloud, To see their sister in her snowy shroud. TO AUTUMN. Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness, With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, |