Art’s mighty means and perfect rudiment,
  That sin I expiate in this agony,
  Hung here in fetters, ’neath the blanching sky. 
    Ah, ah me! what a sound,
What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen
Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,
Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,
To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain—­
Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! 
    The god Zeus hateth sore,
    And his gods hate again,
As many as tread on his glorified floor,
Because I loved mortals too much evermore. 
Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,
  As of birds flying near! 
  And the air undersings
  The light stroke of their wings—­
And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.

From the Greek of AESCHYLUS. 
Translation of ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

SAMSON ON HIS BLINDNESS.

     FROM “SAMSON AGONISTES.”

O loss of sight, of thee I must complain! 
Blind among enemies, O, worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! 
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. 
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me: 
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. 
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of moon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse,
Without all hope of day!

MILTON.

LINES.

[Written in the Tower, the night before his probably unjust execution for treason.]

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
  My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
  And all my goodes is but vain hope of gain. 
The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun;
And now I live, and now my life is done!

My spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung,
  The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green,
My youth is past, and yet I am but young,
  I saw the world, and yet I was not seen. 
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun;
And now I live, and now my life is done!

I sought for death and found it in the wombe,
  I lookt for life, and yet it was a shade,
I trade the ground, and knew it was my tombe,
  And now I die, and now I am but made. 
The glass is full, and yet my glass is run;

And now I live, and now my life is done!

CHEDIOCK TICHEBORNE.

HENCE, ALL YE VAIN DELIGHTS.

     FROM “THE NICE VALOUR,” ACT III.  SC. 3.