Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ;
And all his greaves * and cuisses † dash'd with drops
Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls-
That made his forehead like a rising sun

High from the § daïs-throne—were parched with dust ;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,

Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter'd column lay the king;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
"Ah! my lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy elders with the gift of myrrh. ||
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge :
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world!
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life; and that which I have done
May he within himself make pure! but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul.

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

* Armour for the legs. Fr. greve, the shin. Armour for the thigh. Fr. cuisse, thigh.

§ Canopy of state. Fr. dais, O. Fr. deis, a table.

Blood of the battle.

|| Time of Christ's birth.

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round world is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst-if indeed I go-
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion ;*

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,t
Where I shall heal me of my grievous wound."
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull

Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.

CHARLES KINGSLEY: 1819-1875.

The Banks of the Meta. From" Westward Ho !"

See p. 95. A scene in a South American forest, on the banks of the river Meta, probably drawn from a description in Humboldt's Travels, full of truth and beauty, as the writer of this note can vouch from personal experience.

AND, as the sun rose higher and higher, a great stillness fell upon the forest. The jaguars and the monkeys had hidden themselves in the darkest depths of the woods. The birds' notes died out one by one; the very butterflies ceased their flitting over the tree-tops, and slept with outspread wings upon the glossy leaves, undistinguishable from the flowers around them. Now and then a colibri § whirred down

* "1 The Happy Isles" in the west, of Greek fable.
The wide undulating beauty of the summer bloom.
Oars herself with black-webbed feet.

§ Humming-bird.

vert towards the ven commed for a mome and some pendent Aower, and then the lung gen was ist in the temp Ladiness of że Za v ang re ring as inge and takes the f some Hindoos sanne; or a par wing mi screamed a ten fic an wedhanging bough or a firmy Tonkey sid any down a hate to the surface of the steam tipped up te vier in sy hand and varet datering back, as his eyes met fose of some id aligator peering upward through the dear depths below. a saded books beneath the boughs the tapybaras, calcis as large as its EC: padding sleepily round and round fasting in der mvally beads among the blooms of the bine vater-les: wille tack and purple water-hens ran up and down upon the nis of fan leares. The shining spout of a fresh-water footin rose soviy to the surface: a jer of spray whirred up; a rainbow hung upon it for a moment; and the black snout sank any again Here and there, too, upon some shallow pebbly shore, scarlet famingoes stood treaming knee-deep on one leg; crested cranes pranced up and down, admiring their own finery; and ibises and egress dipped their bills under water in search of prey; but before noot even those had slipped away, and there reigned a stillness which might be heard-such a stillness to compare small things with great as broods beneath the rich shadows of our own Devon woods, or among the lonely sweeps of Exmoor, when the heather is in flower.

JOHN MILTON: 16:8—1674

A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England. From the "Areopagitica.”

John Milton was born in London in 1608-the most learned of our poets, and one of the staunchest champions of our liberties. As a poet his most marked attribute is grandeur; as a prose-writer, intolerance of what seemed to him wrong. In his life he was austere and Puritanic, and his views are occasionally one-sided, harsh, and intolerant; but there is ever too much of majesty and purity about the man to win from us aught but reverence and love. The "Areopagitica” (1644) was a written address rather than a speech, praying and showing reasons for the unlicensed liberty of printing, which then suffered grievously from State interference, and the narrowmindedness and party spirit of the censors which Parliament had appointed to watch over the press.

FIRST, when a city shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance

and battle oft rumoured to be marching up even to her walls and suburb trenches, that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reformed,* should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity and admiration,† things not before discoursed or written of, argues first a singular good will, contentedness, and confidence in your prudent foresight and safe government, Lords and Commons; and from thence derives itself to a gallant bravery and well-grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no smaller number of as great spirits among us, as his was, who when Rome was nigh § besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped his own regiment. Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the pertest || operations of art and subtlety,—it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is; so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up,-as that it has not only the wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy, and new invention,-it betokens us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, but casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive the pangs and wax young again; entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue; destined to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation T rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth,' ‚** and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight†† at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

*Matters whose reformation is most important.

+ Even so as is uncommon and a matter of wonder.

§ Closely.

|| Liveliest; sharpest.

Owes its origin to.

¶ England, who had roused herself, and was rousing herself in the way we know. moulting; putting on the feathers of a new youth.

** Mewing

Removing the scale or film which has long falsified her sight.

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