Chorus. Is horizontal, regular, perpendicular. But see it from without! It strives aloft to heaven, What are arms? Phorkyas. Chorus. Ajax carried erst A coiled snake upon his shield as ye have seen, Phorkyas. O tell us are there dancers there? The best! a golden haired and active band of youths; Who smell of youth! So Paris only smelt before, When he came once too near the queen. Thou fallest now, Quite from thy part. Come, the conclusion tell to me. Phorkyas. Helen. Chorus. Thou mak'st the end alone, if Yea, thou plainly say'st, Say the short word, and save together us and thee. Phorkyas. Hast thou forgotten then, how thy Deiphobus He mutilated, him who fought for thee, the widow sad, Helen. To him he did it: for my sake he did it then. Phorkyas. Chorus. Be sure that for his sake to thee the like he'll do, The whole, destroys it rather than he'll lose a part. (Trumpets in the distance, the Chorus shudders.) How sharp the trumpet's clangor strikes on ear and heart, Plants fast in that man's bosom, who can ne'er forget [glittering arms? Hear'st thou not the trumpet sounding? See'st thou not the Phorkyas. Chorus. Welcome, welcome Lord and master, willing reckoning I will give. Phorkyas. Ye know it clearly, death ye see before your eyes. See your coming death within there! No, there is no help for you. Helen. I have determined that which next I dare to do. An evil demon art thou: that I well perceive, All other know I; what the queen therewith may hide, Far in her bosom's depths mysteriously beneath, (Pause.) Shall be to all unsearchable. Now, old one, lead before, Chorus. O how willingly fly we hence With hurrying feet; As well they may shield us As Ilion's tower, Which only at last Bowed to contemptible craft. (Clouds spread around, hide the background, and the neighbourhood, at How? But how! will.) Sisters look round you! Was it not cheerful day? Clouds are hovering up in streaks Already the lovely-the reed-surrounded N. S.-VOL. I. 4 R With tripping step over the soil? Seest thou nought? did not Hermes pass over? Did not his golden staff glitter commanding, Ordering us back to the joyless, the gloomy— Full of incomprehensible pictures The o'erfilled yet ever empty Hades? Yes, at once it dark becometh, mist unshining round is waving, Greyly darkening brown-like walls. meeting. And walls our glances now are Our free glances straight opposing. Is 't a court? A deep trench is it? Horrible in either case still! Sisters, woe, we now are captives, Captives now as erst we were. (Inside of Castle Court, surrounded with rich fantastic buildings of the middle ages.) Chorus Leader. O'er-quick and foolish, truly genuine womankind! Chorus Leader. Vainly, O queen, thou look'st on all sides round thee here; Of this one wondrous tower which is from many formed, Announcing to us high and kind reception here! High beats my heart! See there now, ( see, Or the ringlets that hang round the dazzling white brow, I'd willingly bite, yet shudder to taste, For in a like case, O horrid to say! The mouth was all filled-but with ashes. Curtains and all The adornments of tents; Hovering above Cloud-garlands forming O'er our queen's head:- Step by step Range yourselves solemnly. Worthy, O worthy, threefold worthy Blessed shall such a reception be! (All that the Chorus says is done by degrees.) 662 LIBRARY MONOLOGUE. BOOKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED. We are in our library alone!-Dear brown room! a very sanctuary hast thou become to us. Many are the days since we were introduced to thy antique physiognomy; yet our love. is constant, and our proved faith inclines us to believe that thou wilt take our coquetry in good part. We were prejudiced against thee on first acquaintance. Even as we speak, returns the vision of rusty curtains, tarnished brass wires, armless chairs, cushionless stools, and rent carpeting. Never will we again take furniture at any valuation-save our own. We had a heart pervaded by all friendly influences; patience had we, and our reward was not withheld. Praise be to Jenny Brown. A den of dust, a receptacle for worn-out loomwork, and superannuated upholstery, was transformed into the beau-ideal of apartments, dignified, but not austere; cheerful, but not frivolous; solemn as a temple, not dark as the chamber of duresse. Solemn as a temple-yes, we were not unadvised in that expression; no cathedral more consecrated than our library, no abbey more hallowed than our brown room. Here have spirits trod-here have we communed with Plato, poet and prophet of civilisation's dawning age-here, in summer hours, hath Spenser conjured up to us the scenes of “faëry"— here has the majestic Milton admitted us to converse with sublime impersonations here has Shakspere drawn aside the curtain, and disclosed the panorama of scenes and beings more mortal in their material existence than in his spiritual delineations. Here, too, has the world of our own soul been visited by the celestial embassy; and the mysteries of existence, the glories of the immaterial hereafter, the subtleties of emotion, the dispensation of pro-pathy, have been registered in memory's unfading chronicle; and, from its perusal, we ever arise conscious of a nobility too exalted for pride. Thus it is, that though no foot of friar hath passed its threshold, though no ritual of priest hath broken its silence, our room is a very temple alien to outward ceremonies, but sanctified by its association with the human heart-that shrine where every worthy offering is made, and every acceptance of worship vouchsafed. Presentation-copies of new books are welcome to a critical editor. A large proportion of such are of a poetical kind-at any rate in a metrical shape. Say, what they will, this is a verse-spinning age-and it is because so much verse is printed, that so little of it sells. But among the illustrious obscures are many deserving of recognition-others, too, have lived for a day, then fallen into neglect, though deserving yet to live. Of these THOMAS WADE is a poet of great excellence. Some years ago, his drama of "Woman's Love, or the Triumph of Patience," founded on the old Tale of Griselda, so well told by Italian Boccace and English Chaucer, was performed, with Charles Kemble for its hero, on the boards of Covent Garden theatre; where now, being neither baronet nor member of parliament, he cannot hope to tread. Great as are Macready's merits, there is a weak point here, which is as the canker to the fair rose of his renown. But, to pass on, we give the title of Mr. Wade's last production-PROTHANASIA, AND OTHER POEMS, By THOMAS Wade. London. John Miller, Henrietta-street, Covent garden. 1839. Mr. Wade is an on-land, and ideas are native to its development, as sun-beams to the orb of light. To know the story of sweet Gunderode, Is to know much of sadness, and that worm Still at the core of things: to know it not, Is to be ignorant of much of grace, Sweetness and love; and thought as delicate As the moist breaking of the spring-time buds. At Frankfort, in the dwelling of a man By men since crowned with immortality, |