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Not while the birds such lays of gladness sing;

Not while bright flowers around my footsteps wreathe.
Spare me, great God, lift up my drooping brow!
I am content to die-but, oh! not now."

The spring hath ripened into summer-tíme,
The season's viewless boundary is past:
The glorious sun hath reached his burning prime;
Oh! must this glimpse of beauty be the last?
"Let me not perish while o'er land and lea

With silent steps the lord of light moves on;
Nor while the murmur of the mountain bee

Greets my dull ear with music in its tone!
Pale sickness dims my eye and clouds my brow;
I am content to die-but, oh! not now."

Summer is gone, and autumn's soberer hues
Tint the ripe fruits and gild the waving corn;
The huntsman swift the flying game pursues,
Shouts the halloo, and winds his eager horn.
"Spare me awhile to wander forth and gaze

On the broad meadows and the quiet stream;
To watch in silence while the evening rays

Slant through the fading trees with ruddy gleam! Cooler the breezes play around my brow;

I am content to die--but, oh! not now."

The bleak wind whistles; snow-showers, far and near,
Drift without echo to the whitening ground;
Autumn hath passed away, and, cold and drear,
Winter stalks on with frozen mantle bound.
Yet still that prayer ascends:-"Oh! laughingly
My little brothers round the warm hearth crowd,
Our home-fire blazes broad, and bright, and high,
And the roof rings with voices glad and loud;
Spare me awhile! raise up my drooping brow!
I am content to die--but, oh! not now."

The spring is come again-the joyous spring!
Again the banks with clustering flowers are spread;
The wild bird dips upon its wanton wing:-

The child of earth is numbered with the dead!
Thee never more the sunshine shall awake,
Beaming all redly through the lattice-pane;
The steps of friends thy slumbers may not break,
Nor fond familiar voice arouse again!
Death's silent shadow veils thy darkened brow:
Why didst thou linger?-thou art happier now!

CLOSET SCENE FROM HAMLET.-SHAKSPEARE.

Enter QUEEN and HAMLET.

Hamlet. Now, mother, what's the matter?

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. ·
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?
Ham.

What's the matter now?

No, by the rood, not so:

Queen. Have you forgot me?
Ham.
You are the queen : your husband's brother's wife;
And-would it were not so!-you are my mother.

Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge. You go not till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do?-thou wilt not murder me? Ham. Leave wringing of your hands: peace; sit you down, And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not brazed it so

That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?

Ham.
Such an act,
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicer's oath! oh, such a deed

As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen. Ah me! what act,

That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:

This was your husband.--Look you, now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age

The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this?

Queen.
Oh, speak no more!
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grainéd spots,

As will not leave their tinct. Oh, speak to me no more!
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears:
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Ham.

A murderer and a villain:

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord:-a vice of kings:
A cut-purse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!

Queen.

Ham.

Of shreds and patches;

No more!

A king

Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,

[Enter GHOST

You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious figure?
Queen. Alas, he's mad!

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
Oh, say!

Ghost. Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother sits:
Oh, step between her and her fighting soul:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas! how is't with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?

Whereon do you look?

Ham. On him! on him! Look you, how pale he giares!

His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,

Would make them capable. Do not look on me,

Lest, with this piteous action, you convert

My stern effects: then what I have to do

Will want true color; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham.

Do you see nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?
Queen.

No, nothing, but ourselves, Ham. Why look you there! look, how it steals away! My father in his habit as he lived!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[Exit GHOST,

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : This bodiless creation, ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham.

Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness,
That I have uttered: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
While rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker.

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Ham. Oh, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.

Good-night: once more, good night!

And when you are desirous to be blest,
I'll blessing beg of you.

MARK TWAIN'S STORY OF "THE GOOD LITTLE BOY.

Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He always obeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demands were; and he always learned his book, and never was late at Sabbath school. He would not play hookey, even when sober judgment told him it was the most profitable thing he could do. None of e other boys could ever make this boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie, no matter how convenient it was. Ho just said it was wrong to lie, and that was sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simply ridiculous. The

furious ways that Jacob had, surpassed every thing. He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, he wouldn't give hot pennies to organ grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem to take any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the other boys used to try to reason it cut and come to an understanding with him, but they couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion; as I said before, they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was "afflicted," and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed any harm to come to him.

This good little boy read all the Sunday school books; they were his greatest delight; this was the whole secret of it. He believed in the good little boys they put in the Sunday school books; he had every confidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive, once; but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever he read about a particularly good one, he turned over quickly to see what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of miles and gaze on him; that good little boy always died in the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all his relations and the Sunday school children standing around the grave in pantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, and everybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard and a half of stuff in them. He was always headed off in this way. He never could see one of those good little boys, on account of his always dying in the last chapter.

Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday school book. He wanted to be put in representing him gloriously declining to lie to his mother, and she weeping for joy about it; and pictures representing him standing on the door-step giving a penny to the poor beggar woman with six children, and telling her to spend it freely, but not to be extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of him magnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay in wait around the corner, as he came from school, and welted him over the head with a lath, and then chased him home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as he proceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished to be put in a Sunday school book. It made him feel a little uncomfort

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