And the rich blood that is in thee, swells in thy indignant pain; Till careless eyes, which rest on thee, may count each started vein. Will they ill-use thee? If I thought-but no, it cannot be Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed, so gentle, yet so free. And yet, if haply when thou'rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn, Can the hand which cast thee from it, now command thee to return. Return, alas! my Arab steed, what shall thy master do, When thou, who wert his all of joy, hast vanished from his view; When the dim distance cheats mine eye, and through the gathering tears, Thy bright form for a moment like the false mirage ap pears; Slow and unmounted will I roam, with weary foot alone, Where with fleet step and joyous bound, thou oft hast borne me on, And sitting down by that green well, I'll pause, and sadly think, It was here he bowed his glossy neck when last I saw him I could not live a day, and know that we should meet no more. They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger's power is strong, They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long. Who said that I had given thee up?—who said that thou wert sold? 'Tis false! 'tis false! my Arab steed,-I fling them back their gold: Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains, Away, who overtakes us now shall claim thee for his pains! PARRHASIUS.* BY WILLIS. THERE stood an unsold captive in the mart, And touched his unhealed wounds, and with a sneer The inhuman soldier smote him, and with threats The ebbing blood into his pallid face. * "Parrhasius, a painter of Athens, among those Olynthian captives Philip of Macedon brought home to sell, bought one very old man; and when he had him at his house, put him to death with extreme torture and torment, the better, by his example, to express the pains and passions of his Prometheus, whom he was then about to paint."-Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 'Twas evening, and the half-descended sun Tipped with a golden fire the many domes Of Athens, and a yellow atmosphere Lay rich and dusky in the shaded street Through which the captive gazed. He had borne up But now he was alone, and from his nerves Gazing upon his grief. The Athenian's cheek The moving picture. The abandoned limbs, eyes; Thin and disordered, hung about his The golden light into the painter's room Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true, L Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus - Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh ; 66 Bring me the captive now! My hand feels skilful, and the shadows lift Upon the bended heavens around me play "Ha! bind him on his back! Look ! -as Prometheus in my picture here! - stand with the cordial near! Now-bend him to the rack! Press down the poisoned links into his flesh! "So-let him writhe! How long How fearfully he stifles that short moan! 66 6 'Pity' thee! So I do! I pity the dumb victim at the altar- A thousand lives were perishing in thine- "Hereafter!" Ay-hereafter! A whip to keep a coward to his track! What gave Death ever from his kingdom back Come from the grave to-morrow with that story- "No, no, old man! we die Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, "Ay- though it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst- The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, "All I would do it all Sooner than die, like a dull worm to rot Thrust foully into earth to be forgot! Oh, heavens!--but I appal Your heart, old man! forgive Ha! on your lives! Let him not faint! rack him till he revives! "Vain-vain-give o'er. His eye Glazes apace. He does not feel you now— Gods! if he do not die But for one moment-one - till I eclipse Conception with the scorn of those calm lips! |