MANFRED'S SOLILOQUY. THE COLISEUM.
LORD BYRON'S "MANFRED."
THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains-Beautiful! I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learned the language of another world. I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering,-upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
'Midst the chief relics of all mighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Cæsar's palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song Begun and died upon the gentle wind. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot. Where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through levelled battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth; But the gladiator's bloody circus stands A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,
While Cæsar's chambers, and the Augustan halls Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up, As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old,— The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns.
ADDRESS TO LIGHT.
JOHN MILTON.
HAIL, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun, Before the heavens thou wert; and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite. Thee I revisit now with bolder wing, And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt, Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That washed thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather thou, celestial light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.
COULD great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder.
Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle: But man, proud man! Dressed in a little brief authority,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.
SHAKESPEARE'S "Measure for Measure."
PUKE OF
(AFTERWARDS RICHARD III.)
AFTER KILLING KING HENRY THE SIXTH.
SHAKESPEARE'S "HENRY VI." Third Part.
WHAT, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted. See how my sword weeps for the poor king's death! O, may such purple tears be always shed
From those that wish the downfall of our house! If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither,- [Stabs him again. I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear, Indeed, 't is true that Henry told me of; The midwife wondered, and the women cried, O, heaven bless us, he is born with teeth! And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog. Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so, Let hell make crooked my mind to answer it. I have no brother, I am like no brother : And this word-love, which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me; I am myself alone.
Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light; But I will sort a pitchy day for thee: For I will buz abroad such prophecies, That Edward shall be fearful of his life; And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death. King Henry and the prince his son are gone : Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest, Counting myself but bad till I be best. I'll throw thy body in another room, And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
GLOSTER'S SOLILOQUY AFTER WOOING THE LADY ANNE.
SHAKESPEARE'S "RICHARD III."
WAS ever woman in this humour wooed ? Was ever woman in this humour won ? I'll have her; but I will not keep her long. What! I, that killed her husband and his father, To take her in her heart's extremest hate, With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by ;
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, And I no friend to back my suit withal,
But the plain devil, and dissembling looks, And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since, Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewksbury? A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, The spacious world cannot again afford; And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince, And made her widow to a woful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am mis-shapen thus ? My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while : Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, Myself to be a marvellous proper man. I'll be at charges for a looking-glass:
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