Swellfoot. I only hear the lean and mutinous swine Grunting about the temple.

Dakry.

In a crisis

Of such exceeding delicacy, I think

We ought to put her majesty, the QUEEN,
Upon her trial without delay.

Mammon.

Is here.

The BAG

Purganax. I have rehearsed the entire scene With an ox-bladder and some ditch-water,

On Lady P.-it cannot fail.

[Taking up the bag.

Your majesty (to SWELLFOOT)

In such a filthy business had better

Stand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you.

A spot or two on me would do no harm;

Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad genius
Of the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell,

Upon my brow-which would stain all its seas,
But which those seas could never wash away!

Iona Taurina. My lord, I am ready-nay I am impatient, To undergo the test.

[A graceful figure in a semi-transparent veil passes unnoticed
through the temple; the word LIBERTY is seen through the
veil, as if it were written in fire upon its forehead. Its
words are almost drowned in the furious grunting of the
Pigs, and the business of the trial. She kneels on the steps
of the Altar, and speaks in tones at first faint and low,
but which ever become louder and louder.
Mighty Empress! Death's white wife!
Ghastly mother-in-law of life!

By the God who made thee such,
By the magic of thy touch,

By the starving and thy cramming,

Of fasts and feasts-by thy dread self, O Famine!
I charge thee! when thou wake the multitude,
Thou lead them not upon the paths of blood.
The earth did never mean her foison
For those who crown life's cup with poison
Of fanatic rage and meaningless revenge-
But for those radiant spirits, who are still
The standard-bearers in the van of Change.

Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill
The lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age!—
Remit, O Queen! thy accustom'd rage!

Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low

FREEDOM calls Famine,-her eternal foe,

To brief alliance, hollow truce.-Rise now!

[Whilst the veiled figure has been chanting this strophe,

MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, and SWELLFOOT, have
surrounded IONA TAURINA, who, with her hands folded
on her breast, and her eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as
with saint-like resignation, to wait the issue of the busi-
ness, in perfect confidence of her innocence.

¡PURGANAX, after unsealing the GREEN BAG, is gravely about
to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole
expression of her figure and countenance changes; she
snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph,
and empties it over SWELLFOOT and his whole Court, who
are instantly changed into a number of filthy and ugly
animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of
FAMINE then arises with a tremendous sound, the Pigs
begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by the
skulls;
all those who eat the loaves are turned into Bulls,
and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The
image of FAMINE sinks through a chasm in the earth, and
a MINOTAUR rises.

Minotaur. I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest

Of all Europa's taurine progeny

I am the old traditional man bull;

And from my ancestors having been Ionian,

I am called Ion, which, by interpretation,

Is JOHN; in plain Theban, that is to say,

My name's JOHN BULL; I am a famous hunter,
And can leap any gate in all Boeotia,
Even the palings of the royal park,

Or double ditch about the new inclosures;

And if your majesty will deign to mount me,
At least till you have hunted down your game,
I will not throw you.

Iona Taurina.

[During this speech she has been putting on boots and spurs, and a hunting-cap, buckishly cocked on one side, and tucking up her hair, she leaps nimbly on his back.

Hoa hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho!

Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down,

These stinking foxes, these devouring otters,

These hares, these wolves, these anything but men.
Hey, for a whipper-in my loyal pigs,

Now let your noses be as keen as beagles',

Your steps as swift as greyhounds', and your cries
More dulcet and symphonious than the bells

Of village towers, on sunshine holiday;
Wake all the dewy woods with jangling music.
Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?)
But such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho!

358 EDIPUS TYRANNUS; OR, SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT.

Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,
Pursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho!

FULL CHORUS OF IONA AND THE SWINE.
Tallyho tallyho!

Through rain, hail, and snow,
Through brake, gorse, and briar,
Through fen, flood, and mire,
We go we go!

Tallyho tallyho!

Through pond, ditch, and slough,
Wind them, and find them, .
Like the devil behind them,

Tallyho tallyho!

[Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving on the SWINE, with the empty GREEN BAG.

EARLY POEMS.

A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCH-YARD.

LECHDALE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sun-set's ray;
And pallid evening twines its beaming hair

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day:
Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men,

Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aërial Pile! whose pinnacles

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height

Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,

And mingling with the still night and mute sky

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnised and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:

Here could I hope, like some inquiring child

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight

Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep

That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.

.

MUTABILITY.

WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly !—yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever;

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest-A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise-One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!-For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free;

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

ON DEATH.

There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.-ECCLESIASTES.

THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile

Which the meteor beam of a starless night

Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,

Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,

Is the flame of life so fickle and wan

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man hold thee on in courage of soul

Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way.
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,

This world is the mother of all we feel,

And the coming of death is a fearful blow,

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.