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Gisli, the Chieftain - Part 1

PART I.

T O THE Goddess Lada prayed
 Gisli, holding high his spear
Bound with buds of spring, and laughed
 All his heart to Lada's ear.

Damp his yellow beard with mead;
 Loud the harps clanged thro' the day;
With bruised breasts triumphant rode
 Gisli's galleys in the bay.

Bards sang in the banquet hall,
 Set in loud verse Gisli's fame;
On their lips the war gods laid
 Fire to chant their warrior's name.

To the Love Queen Gisli prayed,
 Buds upon his tall spear's tip,

Eurymachus's Fancy

When lordly Saturn in a sable robe
Sat full of frowns and mourning in the west,
The evening star scarce peeped from out her lodge,
And Phoebus newly galloped to his rest;
Even then
Did I
Within my boat sit in the silent streams,
All void of cares as he that lies and dreams.

As Phao so a ferryman I was;
The country lasses said I was too fair;
With easy toil I laboured at mine oar,
To pass from side to side who did repair;
And then
Did I
For pains take pence, and Charon-like transport

Live here, great heart; and love and dy and kill

Live here, great Heart; and love and dy and kill;
And bleed and wound; and yeild and conquer still.
Let this immortall life where'er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and MARTYRDOMES.
Let mystick DEATHS wait on't; and wise soules be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art,
Upon this carcase of a hard, cold, heart;
Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large Books of day,
Combin'd against this BREAST at once break in
And take away from me my self and sin;

By nature I love to dress my hair

By nature I love to dress my hair,
combing it carefully, arranging it neatly about my face.
As I hold the mirror in my hand,
a thousand times I gaze at my own image!
But, alas! my hand grows weary of this,
and so I must try to find:
a mirror-stand

Yesterday, as I went down to the bridge at the river,
I was stared at by all the passers-by.
The flowers were sparse—I had no place to hide,
and so they all could see my newly made-up face!
Every moment was filled with embarrassment,
and so I must try to find: