oft darkness on the turf did lie.
Solemn, o'er hut and wood,
In the yet star-sown nightly sky,
The peak of Jaman stood.

Still in my soul the voice I heard
Of Obermann!----away
I turned; by some vague impulse stirr'd,
Along the rocks of Naye

Past Sonchaud's piny flanks I gaze
And the blanch'd summit bare
Of Malatrait, to where in haze
The Valais opens fair,

And the domed Velan, with his snows,
Behind the upcrowding hills,
Doth all the heavenly opening close
Which the Rhone's murmur fills;--

And glorious there, without a sound,
Across the glimmering lake,
High in the Valais-depth profound,
I saw the morning break.

DRAMATIC POEMS

MEROPE

A TRAGEDY

STORY OF THE DRAMA

Apollodorus says:--"Cresphontes had not reigned long in Messenia
when he was murdered, together with two of his sons. And
Polyphontes reigned in his stead, he, too, being of the family of
Hercules; and he had for his wife, against her will, Merope, the
widow of the murdered king. But Merope had borne to Cresphontes a
third son, called AEpytus; him she gave to her own father to bring
up. He, when he came to man's estate, returned secretly to
Messenia, and slew Polyphontes and the other murderers of his
father."

Hyginus says:--"Merope sent away and concealed her infant son.
Polyphontes sought for him everywhere in vain. He, when he grew up,
laid a plan to avenge the murder of his father and brothers. In
pursuance of this plan he came to king Polyphontes and reported the
death of the son of Cresphontes and Merope. The king ordered him to
be hospitably entertained, intending to inquire further of him. He,
being very tired, went to sleep, and an old man, who was the
channel through whom the mother and son used to communicate,
arrives at this moment in tears, bringing word to Merope that her
son had disappeared from his protector's house, and was slain.
Merope, believing that the sleeping stranger is the murderer of her
son, comes into the guest-chamber with an axe, not knowing that he
whom she would slay was her son; the old man recognised him, and
withheld Merope from slaying him. The king, Polyphontes, rejoicing
at the supposed death of AEpytus, celebrated a sac