THE ESSENCE OF SIN.

BY HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

[Son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: born 1796; studied at Merton and Oriel Colleges, Oxford, but forfeited the Oriel fellowship by dissipation; wrote beautiful sonnets for the London Magazine; took pupils at Ambleside for a while, and lived there till his death in 1849.]

IF I have sinned in act, I may repent;

If I have erred in thought, I may disclaim
My silent error, and yet feel no shame :
But if my soul, big with an ill intent,
Guilty in will, by fate be innocent,

Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse
And incapacity of being worse,

That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent
In keen expectance of a Carnival,

Where in all worlds that round the sun revolve,

And shed their influence on this passive ball,
Lives there a power that can my soul absolve?
Could any sin survive and be forgiven,
One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.

VAIN VIRTUES.

BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

[1828-1882; for biographical sketch, see Vol. 10, page 282.]

WHAT is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?

None of the sins, but this and that fair deed
Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.
These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell
Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel

Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves
Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves
Their refuse maidenhood abominable.

Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit,
Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,
Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair
And
eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit
To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife,
The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.

LOST DAYS.

BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

THE lost days of my life until to-day,
What were they, could I see them on the street
Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat
Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?

Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat
The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway?
I do not see them here; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see,
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
"I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me?"
"And I and I-thyself," (lo! each one saith,)
"And thou thyself to all eternity!"

THE RED FISHERMAN; OR THE DEVIL'S DECOY.

BY WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.

[WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, English writer of "vers de société,” was born July 26, 1802, in London. A boy of great early brilliancy, he was prominent in school journalism at Eton, and had a wonderful career at Trinity College, Cambridge. He won a fellowship, contributed much to Knight's Quarterly, became a private tutor, entered the law, took to politics, and was member of Parliament for most of the time from 1830 till his death in 1839. His collected "Poems" contain several pieces of permanent popularity.]

- Romeo and Juliet.

"O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
THE Abbot arose, and closed his book,
And donned his sandal shoon,
And wandered forth, alone, to look
Upon the summer moon:

A starlight sky was o'er his head,

A quiet breeze around;

And the flowers a thrilling fragrance shed,
And the waves a soothing sound:

It was not an hour, nor a scene, for aught
But love and calm delight;

Yet the holy man had a cloud of thought
On his wrinkled brow that night.

He gazed on the river that gurgled by,
But he thought not of the reeds;

He clasped his gilded rosary,

But he did not tell the beads;

If he looked to the heaven, 'twas not to invoke

The Spirit that dwelleth there;

If he opened his lips, the words they spoke
Had never the tone of prayer.

A pious priest might the Abbot seem,

He had swayed the crosier well;

But what was the theme of the Abbot's dream, The Abbot were loath to tell.

Companionless, for a mile or more,
He traced the windings of the shore.
Oh, beauteous is that river still,
As it winds by many a sloping hill,
And many a dim o'erarching grove,
And many a flat and sunny cove,

And terraced lawns, whose bright arcades
The honeysuckle sweetly shades,
And rocks, whose very crags seem bowers,
So gay they are with grass and flowers!
But the Abbot was thinking of scenery
About as much, in sooth,

As a lover thinks of constancy,

Or an advocate of truth.

He did not mark how the skies in wrath
Grew dark above his head;

He did not mark how the mossy path

Grew damp beneath his tread;

And nearer he came, and still more near,

To a pool, in whose recess

The water had slept for many a year,

Unchanged and motionless;

From the river stream it spread away

The space of half a rood;

The surface had the hue of clay

And the scent of human blood;

The trees and the herbs that round it grew
Were venomous and foul,

And the birds that through the bushes flew

Were the vulture and the owl;

The water was as dark and rank

As ever a company pumped,

And the perch, that was netted and laid on the bank,

Grew rotten while it jumped;

And bold was the man who thither came

At midnight, man or boy,

For the place was cursed with an evil name,
And that name was "The Devil's Decoy"!

The Abbot was weary as abbot could be,
And he sat down to rest on the stump of a tree:
When suddenly rose a dismal tone

Was it a song, or was it a moan?

"Oho! Oho!

Above- below

Lightly and brightly they glide and go!
The hungry and keen on the top are leaping,
The lazy and fat in the depths are sleeping;
Fishing is fine when the pool is muddy,
Broiling is rich when the coals are ruddy."
In a monstrous fright, by the murky light,
He looked to the left and he looked to the right.
And what was the vision close before him,
That flung such a sudden stupor o'er him?
'Twas a sight to make the hair uprise,

And the lifeblood colder run:

The startled priest struck both his thighs,
And the abbey clock struck one!
All alone, by the side of the pool,
A tall man sat on a three-legged stool,
Kicking his heels on the dewy sod,
And putting in order his reel and rod;
Red were the rags his shoulders wore,
And a high red cap on his head he bore;
His arms and his legs were long and bare;
And two or three locks of long red hair
Were tossing about his scraggy neck,
Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck.
It might be time, or it might be trouble,
Had bent that stout back nearly double,

Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets
That blazing couple of Congreve rockets,
And shrunk and shriveled that tawny skin,
Till it hardly covered the bones within.
The line the Abbot saw him throw
Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago,
And the hands that worked his foreign vest
Long ages ago had gone to their rest:
You would have sworn, as you looked on them,
He had fished in the flood with Ham and Shem!

There was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he took forth a bait from his iron box. Minnow or gentle, worm or fly

It seemed not such to the Abbot's eye;
Gayly it glittered with jewel and gem,
And its shape was the shape of a diadem.
It was fastened a gleaming hook about
By a chain within and a chain without;
The fisherman gave it a kick and a spin,
And the water fizzed as it tumbled in!
From the bowels of the earth
Strange and varied sounds had birth;
Now the battle's bursting peal,
Neigh of steed and clang of steel;
Now an old man's hollow groan
Echoed from the dungeon stone;
Now the weak and wailing cry
Of a stripling's agony!

Cold by this was the midnight air;

But the Abbot's blood ran colder,

When he saw a gasping knight lie there,

With a gash beneath his clotted hair,

And a hump upon his shoulder.

And the loyal churchman strove in vain
To mutter a Paternoster;

For he who writhed in mortal pain

Was camped that night on Bosworth plain

The cruel Duke of Glo'ster!

There was turning of keys and creaking of locks,

As he took forth a bait from his iron box.

It was a haunch of princely size,

Filling with fragrance earth and skies.