354

355

356

357

L°

THE PRISON CHAMBER

OOK round thee, young Astolpho: there's the place,

which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in,— rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease.

Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench,
doth hope's fair torch expire; and at the snuff,
ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild and wayward,
the desperate revelries of wild despair,

kindling their hell-born cressets, light to deeds
that the poor captive would have died ere practised,
till bondage sunk his soul to his condition.

LOT OF MAN AND WOMAN COMPARED

MAN by the battle's hour immortalized

may fall, yet leave his name to living song;

but of forsaken woman's countless tears

what recks the after-world? the poet's voice

tells nought of all the slow, sad, weary days,

and long, long nights, through which the lonely soul
poured itself forth, consumed itself away,

in passionate adjurings, vain desires,
and ceaselsss weepings for the early lost,
the loved and vanished.

F. HEMANS from Goethe

INVOCATION TO COTYTTO

AIL, goddess of nocturnal sport,

HA

dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
that ne'er art called but when the dragon-womb

of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
and makes one blot of all the air,

stay thy cloudy ebon chair,

wherein thou ridest with Hecate, and befriend
us thy vowed priests, till utmost end

of all thy dues be done, and none left out.

358

To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
not to the beast that would usurp their den:
Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?
not his that spoils her young before her face:
Who 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?
not he that sets his foot upon her back:
the smallest worm will turn being trodden on;
and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.

ALL

TRUE JUSTICE

W. SHAKESPEARE

are not just, because they do no wrong, but he, who will not wrong me when he may, he is the truly just. I praise not them,

who in their petty dealings pilfer not;

but him, whose conscience spurns a secret fraud,
when he might plunder and defy surprise:

his be the praise, who looking down with scorn
on the false judgment of the partial herd,
consults his own clear heart, and boldly dares
to be, not to be thought, an honest man.

R. CUMBERLAND

359 THE ENCOUNTER BETWEEN MORTIMER AND

360

GLENDOWER

HEN on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,

WHE

in single opposition, hand to hand,

he did confound the best part of an hour

.

in changing hardiment with great Glendower.
Three times they breath'd and three times did they
drink,

upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;

who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
and hid his crisp head in the hollow bank
blood-stained with these valiant combatants.

W. SHAKESPEARE

ON SLANDER TO THE DEAD

WOUN

WOUND not the soul of a departed man!
'tis impious cruelty; let justice strike
the living, but in mercy spare the dead.
And why pursue a shadow that is past?

361

362

Why slander the deaf earth, that cannot hear,
the dumb, that cannot utter? When the soul
no longer takes account of human wrongs,
nor joys nor sorrows touch the mouldering heart.
As well you may give feeling to the tomb,
as what it covers-both alike defy you.

H

R. CUMBERLAND

THE QUARRels of brOTHERS

ATRED hatched at home is a tame tiger,

may fawn and sport, but never leaves his nature.

The jars of brothers, two such mighty ones,

is like a small stone thrown into a river,

the breach scarce heard; but view the beaten current,
and you shall see a thousand angry rings

rise in his face, still swelling and still growing;
so jars circling in distrusts, distrusts breed dangers,
and dangers death, the greatest, extreme shadow,
till nothing bound 'em but the shore, their graves.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

THE BELATED TRAVELLER

S you have seen an unskilled traveller,
charmed with some shady wood's delightful
prospect,

stretch out his limbs luxuriously supine,

and sink in slumbers thoughtless of his journey,
till on a sudden swift-winged night comes on,
he starts, and rouses from his golden dream,
with aching heart beholds declining day,
aghast and frighted roams the trackless wild,
and vainly searches the forgotten path,
which intercepting darkness bars from view.

E. HAYWOOD

363

ADVICE ON CONDUCT

OR your behaviour, let it be free

and negligent; not clogged with ceremony
or observance: give no man honour, but
upon equal terms; for look how much thou

364

365

giv'st any man above that, so much thou
tak'st from thyself; he that will once give the
wall shall be quickly thrust into the kennel:
measure not thy carriage by any man's eye.
thy speech by no man's ear; but be resolute
and confident in doing and in saying:
and this is the grace of a right gentleman.

PETE CELSA

G. CHAPMAN

NATURE that formed us of four elements,

warring within our breast for regiment,
doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
the wondrous architecture of the world,
and measure every wandering planet's course,
still climbing after knowledge infinite,
and always moving as the restless spheres,
will us to wear ourselves and never rest,
until we reach the ripest fruit of all.

DID

BRUTUS' REPROOF OF CASSIUS

ID not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? What villain touched his body, that did stab, and not for justice? What, shall one of us, that struck the foremost man of all this world, but for supporting robbers; shall we now contaminate our fingers with base bribes? and sell the mighty space of our large honours, for so much trash as may be grasped thus?— I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, than such a Roman.

W. SHAKESPEARE

366 GRATITUDe of osmyn on recovering his

WIFE ALMERIA

GRANT me but life, good Heaven, but length of days,

to pay some part, some little of the debt,

this countless sum of tenderness and love,
for which I stand engaged to this all-excellence :
then bear me in a whirlwind to my fate!

snatch me from life and cut me short unwarned;

367

368

then, then 'twill be enough!-I shall be old,
I shall have lived beyond all eras then
of yet unmeasured time, when I have made
this exquisite, this most amazing goodness,
some recompense of love and matchless truth!
W. CONGREVE

O

THE CARES OF ROYALTY

ROYALTY! what joys hast thou to boast,
to recompense thy cares? Ambition seems
the passion of a God. Yet, from thy throne
have I with envy seen the naked slave
rejoicing in the music of his chains,
and singing toil away; and then, at eve,
returning peaceful to his couch of rest:
while I sat anxious and perplexed with cares;
projecting, plotting, fearful of events:

or like a wounded snake, lay down to writhe
the sleepless night upon a bed of state.

A

SAMSON TO HIS GUIDE

A. DOWE

LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand
to these dark steps, a little further on;
for yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade:
there I am wont to sit, when any chance
relieves me from my task of servile toil,
daily in the common prison else enjoined me;
where I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
the air imprisoned also, close and damp,

unwholesome draught. But here I feel amends, the breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure and sweet, with day-spring born; here leave me to respire. 369 This day a solemn feast the people hold to Dagon their sea-idol, and forbid laborious works—unwillingly this rest their superstition yields me-hence, with leave retiring from the popular noise, I seek this unfrequented place to find some ease,— ease to the body some, none to the mind from restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm of hornets armed, no sooner found alone, but rush upon me thronging, and present times past, what once I was and what am now.