Leave untended the herd, the flock without shelter;
  Leave the corpse uninterred, the bride at the altar;
  Leave the deer, leave the steer, leave nets and barges: 
  Come with your fighting gear, broadswords and targes.

  Come as the winds come when forests are rended;
  Come as the waves come when navies are stranded;
  Faster come, faster come; faster and faster,
  Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master.

  Fast they come, fast they come; see how they gather! 
  Wide waves the eagle plume blended with heather. 
  Cast your plaids, draw your blades, forward each man set! 
  Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, knell for the onset!

* * * * *

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR.

  I arise from dreams of thee
    In the first sweet sleep of night,
  When the winds are breathing low
    And the stars are shining bright.

  I arise from dreams of thee,
    And a spirit in my feet
  Has led me—­who knows how?—­
    To thy chamber-window, sweet.

  The wandering airs they faint
    On the dark, the silent stream;
  The champak odours fail
    Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
  The nightingale’s complaint,
    It dies upon her heart,
  As I must die on thine,
    O beloved as thou art!

  O lift me from the grass! 
    I die, I faint, I fail! 
  Let thy love in kisses rain
    On my lips and eyelids pale. 
  My cheek is cold and white, alas! 
    My heartbeats loud and fast: 
  O! press it close to thine again,
    Where it will break at last.

VENICE.

[From Lines Written in the Euganean Hills.]

  Sun-girt city, thou hast been
  Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
  Now is come a darker day
  And thou soon must be his prey,
  If the power that raised thee here
  Hallow so thy watery bier. 
  A less drear ruin then than now,
  With thy conquest-branded brow
  Stooping to the slave of slaves
  From thy throne among the waves,
  Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
  Flies, as once before it flew,
  O’er thine isles depopulate,
  And all is in its ancient state;
  Save where many a palace gate
  With green sea-flowers overgrown,
  Like a rock of ocean’s own
  Topples o’er the abandoned sea
  As the tides change sullenly. 
  The fisher on his watery way
  Wandering at the close of day,
  Will spread his sail and seize his oar
  Till he pass the gloomy shore,
  Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
  Bursting o’er the starlight deep,
  Lead a rapid masque of death
  O’er the waters of his path.

A LAMENT.

  O world!  O life!  O time! 
  On whose last steps I climb,
    Trembling at that where I had stood before,
  When will return the glory of your prime? 
    No more—­O, never more!