But her's no spirit was to perish meanly;
A woman, yet not womanishly weak,*
She ran her galley to no sheltering creek,
Nor quail'd before the sword, but met it queenly.

So to her lonely palace-halls she came,

With eye serene their desolation view'd,

And the fell asps with fearless fingers woo'd
To dart their deadliest venom through her frame ;

Embracing death with savage calm, that she
Might rob Rome's galleys of their royal prize,
Queen to the last, and ne'er in humbled guise
To swell a triumph's haughty pageantry!†

* My resolution's placed, and I have nothing
Of woman in me.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act v. Sc. 2.

† I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name for ever! lying robed and crowned,
Worthy a Roman spouse.

TENNYSON'S Dream of Fair Women.

F

ODE XXXVIII.

TO HIS CUPBEARER.

ERSIA'S

pomp, my boy, I hate, No coronals of flowerets rare

For me on bark of linden plait, Nor seek thou, to discover where The lush rose lingers late.

With unpretending myrtle twine
Nought else! It fits your brows,
Attending me, it graces mine,

As I in happy ease carouse

Beneath the thick-leaved vine.

BOOK II.

HE civil broils that date

Back from Metellus' luckless consulate,
The causes of the strife,

Its vices, with fresh seeds of turmoil rife,
The turns of fortune's tide,

The leagues of chiefs to direful ends allied,
The arms of Romans wet

With brothers' blood, not expiated yet,

These are thy chosen theme,

An enterprize that doth with peril teem,

For everywhere thy tread

On ashes falls, o'er lull'd volcanoes thinly spread!

Mute for some little time

Must be the Muse of tragedy sublime

Within our theatres; anon,

The task of chronicling our story done,

Thy noble bent pursue,

And the Cecropian buskin don anew,
Pollio, thou shield unstain'd

Of woful souls, that are of guilt arraign'd,