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recompense of his services, the solace of his pains, the reward of his dangers. The harvest he looks for the destiny, the only, destiny, to which he aspires-is that of his good name; and for that he is content to trust to time, to time, that incorruptible judge, who dispenses justice to all!

11. Gentlemen, you all remember the instance of that Roman, who, to save his country from a dangerous conspiracy, had been constrained to overstep the powers conferred on him by the laws. A captious Trib'une exacted of him the oath that he had respected those laws; hoping, by this insidious demand, to drive the Consul to the alternative of perjury or of an embarrassing avowal. "Swear," said the Tribune, "swear that you have observed the laws.” "I swear," replied the great man, "I swear that I have saved the Republic." Gentlemen, I swear that you have saved France!

12. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!-
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
It is the cause. — Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental al'abaster.
Yet she must die, else she 'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then Put out the light?
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore,

Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Pro-me'the-an heat,
That can thy light relume.

13. Hold thy desperate hand:

Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art;
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.

Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,

I thought thy disposition better tempered.

14. Macbeth. If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were 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,

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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, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.

§ 60. Exercises in Low Pitch. (See § 41.)

1. Tread softly! bow the head;

In reverent silence bow;
No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

2. Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,

- for 't was trod

And thy sad floor an altar,
Until his very steps have left a trace,

Worn as if thy cold pavements were a sod,
By Bonnivard! -May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.

3. Oh! now forever

4.

Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumëd troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner; and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!

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King John. I had a thing to say, · but let it go; The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day, Attended with the pleasures of the world, Is all too wanton and too full of gauds To give me audience. If the midnight bell Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, Sound One unto the drowsy race of night: If this same were a churchyard where we stand, And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;

Or if that thou couldst see me . . . without eyes, Hear me... without thine ears, and make reply Without a tongue, using conceit alone, Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words, Then, in despite of broad-eyed, watchful day, I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts. But, ah! I will not, yet I love thee well; And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st

5. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

well!

The time has been, my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair

Would

at a dismal treatise

rouse and stir

As life were in 't: I have supped full with horrors. Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.

6. I had a dream, which was not all a dream:
The bright sun was extinguished; and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless; and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.

7. Ah! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake! Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe.

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8. Description of Satan.

He above the rest,

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen
Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.

Low PITCH, WITH TRANSITIONS.

9. In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heavenly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns,—
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love! - From Ab'e-lard it came,
And Eloïsa yet must kiss the name.

Dear, fatal name! rest ever unrevealed,
Nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed:
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mixed with God's, his loved idea lies:

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O, write it not, my band the name appears
Already written wash it out, my tears!

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10. There lies a sleeping city. God of dreams!

What an unreäl and fantastic world
Is going on below!

Within the sweep of yon encircling wall,
How many a large creation of the night,
Wide wilderness and mountain, rock and sea,
Peopled with busy transitory groups,

Finds room to rise, and never feels the crowd!

If when the shows had left the dreamers' eyes
They should float upward visibly to mine,
How thick with apparitions were that void!

11. May one be pardoned, and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offense's gilded hand may . . . shove by Justice;
And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itself

...

Buys out the law. But... 't is not so above!
THERE... is no shuffling; there the action lies
In its true nature, and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.

12. Thou sure and firm-set earth!

Hear not my steps, which way they walk; for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.

13. Ye eldest gods!

Who in no statues of exactest form

Are palpable; who shun the azure heights
Of beautiful Olympus, and the sound
Of ever-young Apollo's minstrelsy;
Yet, mindful of the empire which ye held
Over dim Chaos, keep revengeful watch
On falling nations, and on kingly lines
About to sink forever; ye, who shed
Into the passions of earth's giant brood,
And their fierce usages, the sense of justice;
Who clothe the faded battlements of tyranny
With blackness, as a funeral pall, and breathe,
Through the proud halls of time-emboldened guilt,
Pôrtents of ruin, hear me ! In your presence,

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