Skip to content
ReadingWillow structured literacy program for Australian students
Poetry Library

— Stephen Crane

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

…

Read full poem →

noun

A person whose profession is acting on the stage, in films, or on television.

“The lead actor delivered a powerful performance that moved the entire audience to tears.”

Know more →

Act iv. scene the last.

38 lines
Ben Jonson·1572–1637
✦
here is something extremely tender, innocent, and delicate, in theselines of Shakespeare, but our authors are far beyond this praise in theirallusion to the same story. In the Maid's Tragedy, Aspatia in like man-ner forsaken by her lover, finds her maid Antiphila working a picture ofAriadne; and after several fine reflections upon Theseus, says; " But whore's the lady?Ant. There, madam. Asp. Fy, you have miss'd it here, Antiphila,These colours are not dull and pale enough.To shew a soul so full of miseryAs this sad lady's was ; do it by me $Do it again by me the lost Asnatia,And you shall find all true. — rut me* on th* wild island. ^ I stand * If I in thought felt not her very sorrow. '\ Whoever fully catches the tender melancholyof these lines, will knotv that Julia under such distress could not feign a case so exactly theparallel of her own, without such emotions as would speak themselves in every feature, andflow in tears from her eyes. She adds the last line therefore to take off the suspicion of herbeing the real Julia. But would she only say, that she felt Julia's sorrow formerly, whenshe saw her weep? No ! She must excuse the present perturbation of her countenance, andthe true reading most probably is : ** And would I might be dead.If I in thought teel not her very sorrow.'* This better agrees with the double meaning intended, and with Silvia's reply, who sap. She is beholden to thee, gentle youth.I weep myself ^ think upon thy words.' \Tke text is surely unexceptionable, and the alteration a needless refinement.'] ^ Put me* on th* wild island.] I have given these lines as I think we ought to read them,but very different from what are printed in this edition. J'our of the old quarto's, the folio^and the late octavo read, *' ^* And you shall find all true but the wild island.J stand upon the sea-beach now, and think,'* &c. I observed t MR. SEWARD'S PREFACE. zzu I Stand upon the sea-beach now, and think Mine arms thus, and mine hair blown by the wind. Wild as that desart, and let all about me
✦