And Sleep must lie down armed, for the villainous centre-bits
    Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights,
  While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits
    To pestle a poisoned poison behind his crimson lights.

  When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee,
    And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children’s bones,
  Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea,
    War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones.

STANZAS FROM IN MEMORIAM.

  I envy not in any moods
    The captive void of noble rage,
    The linnet born within the cage,
  That never knew the summer woods: 

  I envy not the beast that takes
    His license in the fields of time,
    Unfettered by the sense of crime,
  To whom a conscience never wakes;

  Nor, what may count itself as blest,
    The heart that never plighted troth,
    But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
  Nor any want-begotten rest.

  I hold it true, whatever befall;
    I feel it when I sorrow most;
    ’Tis better to have loved and lost
  Than never to have loved at all.

SONG FROM MAUD.

  Come into the garden, Maud,
    For the black bat, night, has flown;
  Come into the garden, Maud,
    I am here at the gate alone;
  And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
    And the musk of the roses blown.

  For a breeze of morning moves,
    And the planet of Love is on high,
  Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
    On a bed of daffodil sky,
  To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
    To faint in his light, and to die.

  All night have the roses heard
    The flute, violin, bassoon;
  All night has the casement jessamine stirred
    To the dancers dancing in tune;
  Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
    And a hush with the setting moon.

  I said to the lily, “There is but one
    With whom she has heart to be gay. 
  When will the dancers leave her alone? 
    She is weary of dance and play.” 
  Now half to the setting moon are gone,
    And half to the rising day;
  Low on the sand and loud on the stone
    The last wheel echoes away.

  I said to the rose, “The brief night goes
    In babble and revel and wine. 
  O young lord-lover, what sighs are those
    For one that will never be thine? 
  But mine, but mine,” so I swore to the rose,
    “For ever and ever mine.”

ROBERT BROWNING.

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.

  You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 
    A mile or so away
  On a little mound, Napoleon
    Stood on our storming-day;
  With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
    Legs wide, arms locked behind,
  As if to balance the prone brow
    Oppressive with its mind.