Mellows the harsher outlines of the crags. There! there! within a deep, cavernous gorge, I see the half-nude forms of savage men Flitting like phantoms, 'mong the umbrageous trees, Stretched lowly on the cold and danksome sward. As the wild fancies of delirium, Like Etna's flood, roll o'er his fevered brain! As 'twere a mother with a dying child. Upon his father's name! See him entwine The red men move away with noiseless feet, ""Tis evening now, The kindly words his friend pours in his ear. And now his head sinks back, he gasps for breath, His pulse is still-ah, no, it beats again! 'Twas a mere fancy; it will beat no more, For death's cold hand is on him, he is dead! A marble shaft to mark his lonely tomb. Dear friends, the youth who died in that strange land Was my twin brother; and he owed his death To ardent drink. Shall I now taste the cup? Say, shall I taste the cup?" she cried; "No! no!" a score of tongues replied; Of every crime too dark to name; And let the wine-fiend's spell be riven, And turn your thoughts to home and heaven! "Grave fathers all, whose foreheads show In wine let lover drink your health" They feasted late, they feasted long, The guests were loud in laugh and song; Though rich Champagne, and limpid Rhine, But ever drink what God had given, And sent them, on the clouds, from heaven! VERRES DENOUNCED.-CICERO. An opinion has long prevailed, Fathers, that, in public prosecutions, men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the State, it is now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich, and who hopes his riches will compass his acquittal; but whose life and actions are his sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men. I speak of Caius Verres, who, if he now receive not the sentence his crimes deserve, it shall not be through the lack of a criminal, or a prosecutor; but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do their duty. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does the prætorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of villainies? The public treasure squandered, a consul stripped and betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people trampled on! But this prætorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have violated all law, all precedent, all right. His extortions from the industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful allies have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been condemned and banished without a hearing, while the most atrocious criminals have, with money, purchased exemption from the punishment due to their guilt. I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these charges? Are you not the tyrant prætor, who, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, dared to put to an infamous death, on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus! And what was his offence? He had declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against your brutal persecutions! For this, when about to embark for home, he was seized, brought before you, charged with being a spy, scourged and tortured. In vain did he exclaim: "I am a Roman citizen! I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and who will attest my innocence!" Deaf to all remonstrance, remorseless, thirsting for innocent blood, you ordered the savage punishment to be inflicted While the sacred words, "I am a Roman citizen," were on his lips,—words which, in the remotest regions, are a passport to protection, you ordered him to death, to a death upon the cross! O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship, once sacred, now trampled on! Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture, and put to an infamous death, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, the tears of pitying spectators, the majesty of the Roman Commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the merciless monster, who, in the confidence of his riches, strikes at the very root of liberty, and sets mankind at defiance? And shall this man escape? Fathers, it must not be! It must not be, unless you would undermine the very foundations of social safety, strangle justice, and call down anarchy, massacre and ruin on the Commonwealth! THE BOYS.-O. W. HOLMES. This poem was addressed to the class of 1829, in Harvard College, some thirty years after their graduation. The author, who retains, in a high degree, the freshness and joyousness of youth addresses his classmates as “boys." Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more? Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! We want some new garlands for those we have shed, We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" That fellow's the "Speaker," the one on the right; "Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? That's our" Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend "-what's his name?-don't make me laugh. That boy with the grave mathematical look Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the Royal Society thought it was true! So they chose him right in,-a good joke it was too! There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith; Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; |