And read it like a talisman of love!
Press on for it is godlike to unloose
The spirit, and forget yourself in thought;
Bending a pinion for the deeper sky,
And, in the very fetters of your flesh,
Mating with the pure essences of heaven!
Press on!" for in the grave there is no work,
And no device."-Press on! while yet ye may!

IX.-ALNWICK CASTLE.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

HOME of the Percy's high-born race,
Home of their beautiful and brave,
Alike their birth and burial place,
Their cradle and their grave!
Still sternly o'er the castle's gate
Their house's lion stands in state,

As in his proud departed hours;
And warriors frown in stone on high,
And feudal banners "flout the sky"
Above his princely towers.

A gentle hill its side inclines,

Lovely in England's fadeless green, To meet the quiet stream which winds Through this romantic scene.

As silently and sweetly still,

As when, at evening, on that hill,

While summer's wind blew soft and low,

Seated by gallant Hotspur's side,

His Katharine was a happy bride,

A thousand years ago.

Wild roses by the abbey towers

Are gay in their young bud and bloom: They were born of a race of funeral flowers That garlanded, in long-gone hours,

A Templars' knightly tomb.

QUIN AND FOOTE.

He died, the sword in his mailed hand,
On the holiest spot of the Blessed Land,

341

Where the cross was damp'd with his dying breath, When blood ran free as festal wine,

And the sainted air of Palestine

Was thick with the darts of death.

Wise with the lore of centuries,

What tales, if there be "tongues in trees"
Those giant oaks could tell,

Of beings born and buried here;
Tales of the peasant and the peer,
Tales of the bridal and the bier,

The welcome and farewell,

Since on their boughs the startled bird
First, in her twilight slumbers, heard
The Norman's curfew-bell.

"I wonder not,"

Says Quin, "that thought

Should in your head be found,

Since that's the way

Your debts you pay―

One shilling in the pound."

XL-THE QUALITY OF MERCY.

SHAKSPEARE

THE quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above his sceptered sway,

It is enthroned in the heart's of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

XII.-FROM HENRY V.

SHAKSPEARE

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man,

As modest stillness, and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage;

SLEEP.

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded* base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height!

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Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why, rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;

And in the visitation of the winds

Who take the ruffian billows by the top

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamors, in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ;
And, in the calmest, and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

* Worn.

XIV.-SOLILOQUY OF MACBETH,

SHAKSPEARE

-

If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come. But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

I have no spur

XV. VENICE AND AMERICA.

OH Venice, Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be

A cry of nations, o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!

BYRON