Where wheels the towering vulture, and all night
The jackal's eerie wailing holds the air.
And echoing rolls through cavernous confines dim.
256 George Kett

And deeps of yawning darkness. I'll not live !
What is there left to live for ? Hope is gone,
Freedom is lost : they hold me but a beast,
Left here to batten only, till the day
When strikes the hour of sacrifice. It comes —
And soon — e'en if it longest bide. I'll die
Before it comes. I'U disappoint them yet —
The Roman guard, that wait to drag me forth.
That hope to gloat upon my miseries.
That long to strut their utmost inch of strength
Striding beside me, saying by their port :
" Behold in us the unvanquished conquerors,
Dragging again the victim to his doom ;
As 'tis our wont to " — and the surging crowd —
The wolfish crowd, that's craven till it meet.
And meek as coward counsels ; but, when met.
Fierce-eyed, and devil-throated — and the sleek.
Silk-cinctured, full-paunched, oily Sanhedrim —
They shall not have their ghoulish wUl of me !
I will not live. I'll even now beat out
My breath against yon iron-studded door —
Or send it bursting — if these wUl but break.
And let me.
{He struggles desperately with his chains, fails
to break them, and falls panting.)

George Kett.
Hugh J. Evans 257

Of my Love.^

Sweet is my Love as new-mown hay,

And fair as a lovely peach.
And in her eyes 'tis always May,

With a cloudless sky in each.
No fruit hath bloom like to her lips,

No sea like her ears a shell ;
Oh ! soft is the touch of her finger-tips,

And her voice is a silver bell.
