What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,

And burn your lights faintly!-My country is there,

Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow: My Italy's THERE,-with my brave civic Pair, To disfranchise despair!

Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,

And bite back the cry of their pain in self

scorn:

90

But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length

Into such wail as this!-and we sit on forlorn

When the man-child is born.

95

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east, And one of them shot in the west by the sea, Both both my boys!-If in keeping the feast You want a great song for your Italy free, Let none look at me!

1862.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

100

ULALUME

THE skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere.
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir:
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 9

Here once, through an alley Titanic
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul-
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll,

As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole,

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and

sere,

Our memories were treacherous and

sere,

For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)We noted not the dim lake of Auber

(Though once we had journeyed down
here)-

Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of

Weir.

19

29

And now, as the night was senescent
And the star-dials pointed to morn,
As the star-dials hinted of morn,
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn-
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn,

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs-
She revels in a region of sighs:

She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies,
To the Lethean peace of the skies:
Come up, in despite of the Lion,

To shine on us with her bright eyes:
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

50

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: Sadly this star I mistrust,
Her pallor I strangely mistrust :-
Oh, hasten!-oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly!-let us fly!-for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust;

In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust-
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 60

I replied "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!

Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its sibyllic splendor beaming

With hope and in beauty to-night:

See, it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,

And be sure it will lead us aright: We safely may trust to a gleaming

That cannot but guide us aright,

Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom,
And conquered her scruples and gloom:
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb,
By the door of a legended tomb;

And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume-Ulalume-
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

71

81

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere,
As the leaves that were withering and sere,

And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year

That I journeyed-I journeyed down here-
That I brought a dread burden down here:
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber,
This misty region of Weir:

Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." 94

1847.

Edgar Allan Poe.

LORRAINE

"ARE you ready for your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe?

Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum,

Barum, Barum, Baree.

You 're booked to ride your capping race today at Coulterlee,

You 're booked to ride Vindictive, for all the

world to see,

To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the run for me."

Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum,

Barum, Barum, Baree.

She clasp'd her new-born baby, poor Lorraine,

Lorraine, Lorree,

Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum,

Barum, Barum, Baree.

9