And all was hushed except the lone Far nightingale renewed its song, And in a kiss that lingered long, Their souls communing blissfully Dissolved in perfect harmony. They kissed as kiss in sacrifice Two altar-flames, which thus unite, And shine with an intenser light As nearer heaven’s door they rise. To them the world had fled from sight, And time desisted from its flight. Each hour of time’s mortality Is measured by the strictest line, But death’s cold kiss, and love’s divine Are children of eternity.
[A] A monument with runic inscription, raised over a fallen warrior.
[B] That is by a red-hot cannon ball, placed at the middle of the tent.
[C] Pronounced as in Swedish, Marea. Marie, which occurs below, is pronounced Mare´.
[D] The author does not here personify love, but reversing the process, considers it once a person and inhabitant of heaven, now degraded to be a mere quality on earth.
[E] A poet-bishop of Sweden, much admired by Tegnér.
“There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why make them stare till they stare their eyes out! But consider how easy it is to make people stare by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You remember the gentleman in ‘The Spectator,’ who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, sir, abstractedly, the night-cap was best: but, relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him.”—_Boswell, reporting Samuel Johnson._
A picture of the times of Edward III should be one of strong lights and shades. His fifty years were crowded with events remarkable in their nature and of powerful influence on England, then and thereafter. His wars by land and sea revolutionized the military ideas of Europe; the invincible English infantry rose, and the thunder of the first cannon proclaimed the end of chivalry; the organization of the House of Commons and the enlistment of soldiers for stipend introduced in its full effect the safe policy of “control of the sovereign by the control of his purse.” The foundation of Flemish manufactures in England, and the opening of the New Castle coal trade on the one hand, with the labors of Wickliffe and Chaucer on the other, were alone sufficient to make any reign memorable.
