LLEWELLYN.

Father, this is not well to mock me so;
My heart is sated with the draught of Hope,
And, loathing, turns from the delusive cup;
Nay! touch him not—­’tis well that he should lie,
Calm and unquestion’d, on the breast of Heav’n;
Yet once again my lips must flutter his,
He may not be so distant, but that Love
May send its greeting flying on his track—­
The lips are warm—­my God! he lives! he lives!

     [Takes the child, who awakes in his arms.]

MONK.

Faith!  This is stranger than a gossip’s tale!  My son! the wonderment o’ermasters you—­ Nay! look not thus—­let Nature have her way—­ Give words to joy, and be your thanks first paid To Heav’n, that sends you thus your child again.

LLEWELLYN.

The joy was almost more than man might bear! 
And still my thoughts are lost in wild amaze—­
The child unhurt—­this blood—­the hound—­in troth,
The riddle passes my poor wits.

MONK.

Let’s search
The chamber well—­Heav’n shield us! what is this?

LLEWELLYN.

A wolf! and dead!—­Ah! now I see it clear—­
The hound kept worthy watch, and in my haste
I slew the saviour of my house and joy. 
Poor Gelert! thou shalt have such recompense
As man may pay unto the dead—­Thy name
Henceforth shall stand for Faithfulness, and men
For evermore shall speak thine epitaph.

A SHELL.

From what rock-hollow’d cavern deep in ocean,
  Where jagged columns break the billow’s beat,
Whirl’d upward by some wild mid-world commotion,
  Has this rose-tinted shell steer’d to my feet?

Perchance the wave that bore it has rejoiced
  Above Man’s founder’d hopes, and shatter’d pride,
Whilst fierce Euroclydon swept, trumpet-voiced,
  Through the frail spars, and hurl’d them in the tide,
  And the lost seamen floated at its side!

Ah! thus too oft do Woe and Beauty meet,
  Swept onward by the self-same tide of fate,
The bitter following swift upon the sweet,
  Close, close together, yet how separate!

Frail waif from the sublime storm-shaken sea,
  Thou seem’st the childhood toy of some old king,
Who ’mid the shock of nations lights on thee,
  And instant backward do his thoughts take wing
To the unclouded days of infancy;
  Then, sighing, thus away the foolish joy doth fling.

Forth from thine inner chambers come there out
  Low murmurs of sweet mystic melodies,
Old Neptune’s couch winding lone caves about,
  In tones that faintly through the waves arise,
  And steal to mortal ears in softest sighs.

The poet dreams of olden ages flowing
  Through the time-ocean to the listening soul,
Ages when from each fountain clear and glowing,
  Unto the spirit Naiad voices stole.

And still, from earth and sea, there ever pealeth
  A voice far softer than leal lover’s lay,
Bearing the heart, o’er which its true sense stealeth,
  Far to diviner dreams of joy away,
  And to the wisdom of a riper day.