Lo, upon a silent hour, When the pitch of frost subsides, Danube with a shout of power Loosens his imprisoned tides: Wide around the frighted plains Shake to hear the riven chains, Dreadfuller than heaven in wrath, As he makes himself a path: High leaps the ice-cracks, towering pile Floes to bergs, and giant peers Wrestle on a drifted isle; Island on ice-island rears; Dissolution battles fast: Big the senseless Titans loom, Through a mist of common doom Striving which shall die the last: Till a gentle-breathing morn Frees the stream from bank to bank. So the Empire built of scorn Agonised, dissolved, and sank. Of the queen no more was told Than of leaf on Danube rolled. Make the bed for Attila! I have said that this poem is emotional rather than didactic; yet there is a moral suggestion in it, the suggestion of what one foolish indulgence in lust may cause. For in the case of Attila, who had already scores and scores of wives, the marriage with Ildico was a mere piece of brutal indulgence and cruelty, and it proved his death. Then again, of course, it was a good thing for the world that Attila died when he did. It would seem as if nature tahes very good care that men who are only brutal and cunning shall not be allowed to rule human life for a great length of time. Their own passions or their own follies eventually destroy them. There is yet another suggestion in the poem, which Meredith is very fond of making, both in his novels and in his verse. He thinks that an old man should never marry a young woman, no matter how great the merit of the old man may be. Here and there will be many to disagree with Meredith, and to quote such cases as that of the great French engineer, De Lesseps, who married only when he was more than sixty years old, and thereafter raised a very numerous family of remarkably fine children. But in a general way, Meredith is probably right. He expounds his ideas very clearly in a little poem called "The Last Contention." In this "last contention" the poet addresses an old man who wants to marry a young girl. He represents the mind of the man as that of a captain, directing a ship, and the ship is the body, the constitution, the physical part of the individual. With this explanation we may quote a few verses of the poem. It is cruel; but it is very moral and perhaps very just. Young captain of a crazy bark! O tameless heart in battered frame! Thy sailing orders have a mark, And hers is not the name. For action all thine iron clanks In cravings for a splendid prize; Again to race or bump thy planks With any flag that flies. Admires thee Nature with much pride; She clasps thee for a gift of morn. Till thou art set against the tide. And then beware her scorn.