’What, no crown won,
These two whole years,
By man of fortitude beyond his peers,
In Thrace or Macedon?’
   ’No, none. 
But what deep trouble does my Lycon feel,
And hide ‘neath chat about the commonweal?’
   ’Glauce but now the third time did again
The thing which I forbade.  I had to box her ears. 
’Twas ill to see her both blue eyes
Settled in tears
Despairing on the skies,
And the poor lip all pucker’d into pain;
Yet, for her sake, from kisses to refrain!’
   ’Ho, Timocles, take down
That crown. 
No, not that common one for blood with extreme valour spilt,
But yonder, with the berries gilt. 
’Tis, Lycon, thy just meed. 
To inflict unmoved
And firm to bear the woes of the Beloved
Is fortitude indeed.’

SEMELE.

No praise to me! 
My joy ’twas to be nothing but the glass
Thro’ which the general boon of Heaven should pass,
To focus upon thee. 
Nor is’t thy blame
Thou first should’st glow, and, after, fade i’ the flame. 
It takes more might
Than God has given thee, Dear, so long to feel delight. 
Shall I, alas,
Reproach thee with thy change and my regret? 
Blind fumblers that we be
About the portals of felicity! 
The wind of words would scatter, tears would wash
Quite out the little heat
Beneath the silent and chill-seeming ash,
Perchance, still slumbering sweet.

NOTES.

{29} In this year the middle and upper classes were disfranchised by Mr. Disraeli’s Government, and the final destruction of the liberties of England by the Act of 1884 rendered inevitable.

{35} The Alabama Treaty.

{62} This Piece was written in the year 1874, soon after the publication of an incendiary pamphlet by Mr. Gladstone against the English Catholics, occasioned by the Vatican Council.

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