Lay hold on this opportunity of our salvation, Conscript Fathers,—by the Immortal Gods I conjure you!—and remember that you are the foremost men here, in the council chamber of the whole earth. Give one sign to the Roman people that even as now they pledge their valor—so you pledge your wisdom to the crisis of the State. But what need that I exhort you? Is there one so insensate as not to understand that if we sleep over an occasion such as this, it is ours to bow our necks to a tyranny not proud and cruel only, but ignominious—but sinful? Do ye not know this Antony? Do ye not know his companions? Do ye not know his whole house—insolent—impure—gamesters—drunkards? To be slaves to such as he, to such as these, were it not the fullest measure of misery conjoined with the fullest measure of disgrace? If it be so—may the gods avert the omen—that the supreme hour of the republic has come, let us, the rulers of the world, rather fall with honor, than serve with infamy! Born to glory and to liberty, let us hold these bright distinctions fast, or let us greatly die! Be it, Romans, our first resolve to strike down the tyrant and the tyranny. Be it our second to endure all things for the honor and liberty of our country. To submit to infamy for the love of life can never come within the contemplation of a Roman soul! For you, the people of Rome—you whom the gods have appointed to rule the world—for you to own a master, is impious.
You are in the last crisis of nations. To be free or to be slaves—that is the question of the hour. By every obligation of man or States it behooves you in this extremity to conquer-as your devotion to the gods and your concord among yourselves encourage you to hope—or to bear all things but slavery. Other nations may bend to servitude; the birthright and the distinction of the people of Rome is liberty. Cicero.
Yes, Athenians, I repeat it, you yourselves are the contrivers of your own ruin. Lives there a man who has confidence enough to deny it? Let him arise, and assign, if he can, any other cause of the success and prosperity of Philip. "But," you reply, "what Athens may have lost in reputation abroad, she has gained in splendor at home. Was there ever a greater appearance of prosperity? a greater face of plenty? Is not the city enlarged? Are not the streets better paved, houses repaired and beautified?" Away with such trifles! Shall I be paid with counters? An old square new vamped up! a fountain! an aqueduct! are these acquisitions to brag of? Cast your eye upon the magistrate under whose ministry you boast these precious improvements. Behold the despicable creature, raised all at once from dirt to opulence; from the lowest obscurity to the highest honors. Have not some of these upstarts built private houses and seats, vying with the most sumptuous of our public palaces? And how have their fortunes and their power increased, but as the commonwealth has been ruined and impoverished?
To what are we to impute these disorders, and to what cause assign the decay of a State so powerful and flourishing in past times? The reason is plain. The servant is now become the master. The magistrate was then subservient to the people: all honors, dignities, and preferments, were disposed by the voice and favor of the people; but the magistrate, now, has usurped the right of the people, and exercises an arbitrary authority over his ancient and natural lord. You, miserable people! the meanwhile, without money, without friends,—from being the ruler, are become the servant; from being the master, the dependent: happy that these governors, into whose hands you have thus resigned your own power, are so good and so gracious as to continue your poor allowance to see plays.
Believe me, Athenians, if, recovering from this lethargy, you would assume the ancient spirit and freedom of your fathers if you would be your own soldiers and own commanders, confiding no longer your affairs in foreign or mercenary hands—if you would charge yourselves with your own defense, employing abroad, for the public, what you waste in unprofitable pleasures at home, the world might once more behold you making a figure worthy of Athenians. "You would have us, then, (you say,) do service in our armies in our own persons; and, for so doing, you would have the pensions we receive in time of peace, accepted as pay in time of war. Is it thus we are to understand you?" Yes, Athenians, 't is my plain meaning. I would make it a standing rule, that no person, great or little, should be the better for the public money, who would grudge to employ it for the public service. Are we in peace? the public is charged with your subsistence. Are we in war, or under a necessity, as at this time, to enter into a war? let your gratitude oblige you to accept, as pay in defence of your benefactors, what you receive, in peace, as mere bounty. Thus, without any innovation—without altering or abolishing anything but pernicious novelties, introduced for the encouragement of sloth and idleness—by converting only for the future, the same funds, for the use of the serviceable, which are spent, at present, upon the unprofitable, you may be well served in your armies—your troops regularly paid—justice duly administered—the public revenues reformed and increased—and every member of the commonwealth rendered useful to his country according to his age and ability without any further burden to the State.
This, O men of Athens, is what my duty prompted me to represent to you upon this occasion.—May the gods inspire you to determine upon such measures, as may be most expedient, for the particular and general good of our country!
Athens never was once known to live in a slavish, though a secure obedience to unjust and arbitrary power. No; our whole history is one series of noble contests for preëminence; the whole period of our existence hath been spent in braving dangers, for the sake of glory and renown. And so highly do you esteem such conduct, so consonant to the Athenian character that those of your ancestors who were most distinguished in the pursuit of it, are ever the most favorite objects of your praise—and with reason. For who can reflect without astonishment upon the magnanimity of those men, who resigned their lands, gave up their city and embarked in their ships, to avoid the odious state of subjection?—who chose Themistocle, the adviser of this conduct, to command their forces and, when Cyrsilus proposed that they should yield to the terms prescribed, stoned him to death? Nay the public indignation was not yet allayed. Your very wives inflicted the same vengeance on his wife. For the Athenians of that day looked out for no speaker, no general to procure them a state of prosperous slavery. They had the spirit to reject even life, unless they were allowed to enjoy that life in freedom. Should I then attempt to assert that it was I who inspired you with sentiments worthy of your ancestors, I should meet the just resentment of every hearer. No; it is my point to show, that such sentiments are properly your own—that they were the sentiments of my country, long before my days. I claim but my share of merit, in having acted on such principles, in every part of my administration. He, then, who condemns every part of my administration, he who directs you to treat me with severity, as one who hath involved the State in terrors and dangers, while he labors to deprive me of present honor, robs you of the applause of all posterity. For, if you now pronounce, that, as my public conduct hath not been right, Ctesiphon must stand condemned it must be thought that you yourselves have acted wrong, not that you owe your present state to the caprice of fortune. But it cannot be! No, my countrymen! it cannot be you have acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the liberty and the safety of all Greece. No! by those generous souls of ancient times, who were exposed at Marathon! By those who stood arrayed at Platæa! By those who encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis! Who fought at Artemisium! No! by all those illustrious sons of Athens, whose remains lie deposited in the public monuments.
The reign of Queen Elizabeth may be considered as the opening of the modern history of England, especially in its connection with the modern system of Europe, which began about that time to assume the form that it preserved till the French Revolution. It was a very memorable period, of which the maxims ought to be engraven on the head and heart of every Englishman. Philip the Second, at the head of the greatest empire then in the world openly was aiming at universal domination. To the most extensive and opulent dominions, the most numerous and disciplined armies, the most renowned captains, the greatest revenue, he added also the most formidable power over opinion. Elizabeth was among the first objects of his hostility. That wise and magnanimous princess placed herself in the front of the battle for the liberties of Europe. Though she had to contend at home with his fanatical faction, which almost occupied Ireland, which divided Scotland, and was not of contemptible strength in England, she aided the oppressed inhabitants of the Netherlands in their just and glorious resistance to his tyranny; she aided Henry the Great in suppressing the abominable rebellion which anarchical principles had excited and Spanish arms had supported in France, and after a long reign of various fortune, in which she preserved her unconquered spirit through great calamities and still greater dangers, she at length broke the strength of the enemy, and reduced his power within such limits as to be compatible with the safety of England and of all Europe. Her great heart inspired her with a higher and a nobler wisdom—which disdained to appeal to the low and sordid passions of her people even for the protection of their low and sordid interests, because she knew, or, rather, she felt that there are effeminate, creeping, cowardly, short-sighted passions, which shrink from conflict, even in defence of their own mean objects. In a righteous cause she roused those generous affections of her people, which alone teach boldness, constancy, and foresight, and which are therefore the only safe guardians of the lowest as well as the highest interests of a nation. In her memorable address to the army, when the invasion of her kingdom was threatened by Spain, this woman of heroic spirit disdained to speak to them of their ease and their commerce, and their wealth and their safety. No! She touched another chord—she spoke of their national honor, of their dignity as Englishmen, of "the foul scorn that Parma or Spain should dare to invade the borders of her realms." She breathed into them those grand and powerful sentiments, which exalt vulgar men into heroes which led them into the battle of their country armed with holy and irresistible enthusiasm; which ever cover with their shield all the ignoble interests that base calculation, and cowardly selfishness tremble to hazard, but shrink from defending. J. Mackintosh.
Gentlemen, there is one point of view in which this case seems to merit your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the world ever saw; the defendant is a defenseless, proscribed exile. I consider this case, therefore, as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world and the only Free Press remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English Press is new—it is a proud and melancholy distinction. Before the great earthquake of the French Revolution had swallowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the Continent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than others; but we did not enjoy it exclusively. It existed, in fact, where it was not protected by law; and the wise and generous connivance of governments was daily more and more secured by the growing civilization of their subjects. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free. Holland and Switzerland are no more; and, since the commencement of this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list of independent States by one dash of the pen. Three or four still preserve a precarious and trembling existence. I will not say by what compliances they must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the feebleness of States, whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly deplore.
One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where man can fully exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The Press of England is still free. It is guarded by the free Constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen; and, I trust I may venture to say that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British Empire. It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of European liberty has perished. That ancient fabric which has been gradually raised by the wisdom and virtues of our fathers still stands. It stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire—but it stands alone, and it stands amid ruins. Believing, then, as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle—that this is only the first of a long series of conflicts between reason and power that you have now in your hands committed to your trust, the protection of the only Free Press remaining in Europe, now confined to this kingdom; and addressing you therefore as the guardians of the most important interests of mankind—convinced that the unfettered exercise of reason depends more on your present verdict than on any other that was ever delivered by a jury,—I trust I may rely with confidence on the issue—I trust that you will consider yourselves as the advanced guard of Liberty—as having this day to fight the first battle of free discussion against the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered! J. Mackintosh.
The liberty of the press, on general subjects, comprehends and implies as much strict observance of positive law as is consistent with perfect purity of intention, and equal and useful society. What that latitude is, cannot be promulgated in the abstract, but must be judged in the particular instance, and consequently, upon this occasion, must be judged of by you without forming any possible precedent for any other case.
If gentlemen, you are firmly persuaded of the singleness and purity of the author's intentions, you are not bound to subject him to infamy, because in the zealous career of a just and animated composition, he happens to have tripped with his pen into an intemperate expression in one or two instances of a long work. If this severe duty were binding on your conscience, the liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man could venture to write on any subject, however pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other.
From minds thus subdued by the terrors of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of government, by the help of which the great commonwealths of mankind have founded their establishments; much less any of those useful applications of them to critical conjunctures, by which, from time to time, our own Constitution, by the exertion of patriot citizens, has been brought back to its standard. Under such terrors, all the great lights of science and civilization must be extinguished; for men cannot communicate their free thoughts to one another with a lash held over their heads. It is the nature of everything that is great and useful both in the animate and inanimate world, to be wild and irregular, and we must be contented to take them with the alloys which belong to them, or live without them. Genius breaks from the fetters of criticism, but its wanderings are sanctioned by its majesty and wisdom when it advances in its path: subject it to the critic, and you tame it into dulness. Mighty rivers break down their banks in the winter, sweeping away to death the flocks which are fattened on the soil that they fertilize in the summer: the few may be saved by embankments from drowning, but the flock must perish for hunger. Tempests occasionally shake our dwellings and dissipate our commerce; but they scourge before them the lazy elements, which without them would stagnate into pestilence. In like manner, Liberty herself, the last and best gift of God to his creatures, must be taken Just as she is: you might pare her down into bashful regularity, and shape her into a perfect model of severe, scrupulous law, but she would then be Liberty no longer; and you must be content to die under the lash of this inexorable justice which you had exchanged for the banners of Freedom. Lord Erskine.
I am driven in the defence of my client, to remark, that it is mad and preposterous to bring to the standard of justice and humanity the exercise of a dominion founded upon violence and terror. It may and must be true that Mr. Hastings has repeatedly offended against the rights and privileges of Asiatic government, if he was the faithful deputy of a power which could not maintain itself for an hour without trampling upon both. He may and must have offended against the laws of God and nature, if he was the faithful viceroy of an empire wrested in blood from the people to whom God and nature had given it. He may and must have preserved that unjust dominion over timorous and abject nations by a terrifying overbearing, insulting superiority, If he was the faithful administrator of your government, which, leaving no root in consent or affection no foundation in similarity of interests—no support from any one principle which cements men together in society, could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. The unhappy people of India, feeble and effeminate as they are from the softness of their climate, and subdued and broken as they have been by the knavery and strength of civilization, still occasionally start up in all the vigor and intelligence of insulted nature. To be governed at all, they must be governed with a rod of iron; and our empire in the East would, long since, have been lost to Great Britain, if civil skill and military prowess had not united their efforts to support an authority—which Heaven never gave—by means which it never can sanction.
Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you are touched with this way of considering the subject, and I can account for it. I have not been considering it through the cold medium of books, but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself among reluctant nations submitting to our authority. I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressing the Governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence. "Who is it," said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adventure—"who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself into the ocean? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in summer? Who is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to in; and by this title we will defend it," said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground, and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe; and depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection.
If England, from a lust of ambition and dominion, will insist on maintaining despotic rule over distant and hostile nations, beyond all comparison more numerous and extended than herself, and gives commission to her viceroys to govern them with no other instructions than to preserve them, and to secure permanently their revenues, with what color of consistency or reason can she place herself in the moral chair, and affect to be shocked at the execution of her own orders; adverting to the exact measure of wickedness and injustice necessary to their execution, and, complaining only of the excess as the immorality, considering her authority as a dispensation for breaking the commands of God, and the breach of them as only punishable when contrary to the ordinances of man? Such a proceeding, gentlemen, begets serious reflection. It would be better, perhaps, for the masters and the servants of all such governments to join in supplication, that the great Author of violated humanity may not confound them together in one common judgment. Lord Erskine.
I might as a constituent, come to your bar and demand my liberty. I do call upon you by the laws of the land, and their violation; by the instructions of eighteen counties; by the arms, inspiration, and providence of the present moment—tell us the rule by which we shall go; assert the law of Ireland; declare the liberty of the land! I will not be answered by a public lie, in the shape of an amendment; nor, speaking for the subjects' freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe in this our island, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be to break your chain and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied so long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking to his rags. He may be naked,—he shall not be in irons. And I do see the time at hand; the spirit is gone forth; the Declaration of Right is planted; and though great men should fall off, yet the cause shall live; and though he who utters this should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the humble organ who conveys it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man will not die with the prophet, but survive him. H. Grattan.
That religion has, in fact, nothing to do with the politics of many who profess it, is a melancholy truth. But that it has of right, no concern with political transactions, is quite a new discovery. If such opinions, however, prevail, there is no longer any mystery in the character of those whose conduct in political matters violates every precept and slanders every principle of the religion of Christ. But what is politics? Is it not the science and the exercise of civil rights and civil duties? And what is religion? Is it not an obligation to the service of God, founded on his authority, and extending to all our relations, personal and social? Yet religion has nothing to do with politics? Where did you learn this maxim? The Bible is full of directions for your behavior as citizens. It is plain, pointed; awful in its injunctions on ruler and ruled as such: yet religion has nothing to do with politics! You are commanded "in all your ways to acknowledge Him." In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to let your requests be made known unto God "And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." Yet religion has nothing to do with politics! Most astonishing! And is there any part of your conduct in which you are, or wish to be, without law to God, and not under the law of Jesus Christ? Can you persuade yourselves that political men and measures are to undergo no review in the judgment to come? That all the passion and violence, the fraud and falsehood and corruption, which pervade the system of party, and burst out like a flood at the public elections, are to be blotted from the catalogue of unchristian deeds, because they are politics? Or that a minister of the gospel may see his people, in their political career, bid defiance to their God in breaking through every moral restraint, and keep a guiltless silence, because religion has nothing to do with politics? I forbear to press the argument farther; observing only that many of our difficulties and sins may be traced to this pernicious notion. Yes, if our religion had had more to do with our politics; if, in the pride of our citizenship, we had not forgotten our Christianity; if we had prayed more and wrangled less about the affairs of our country, it would have been infinitely better for us at this day J. M. Mason
O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming—Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming!And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;O say, does that Star-spangled Banner yet waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses!Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:'T is the Star-spangled Banner!—O long may it waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where are the foes who so vauntingly sworeThat the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,A home and a country should leave us no more?Their blood hath washed out their foul footsteps' pollution!No refuge could save the hireling and slaveFrom the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
O, thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved homes and the war's desolation!Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued landPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a NationThen conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto—"In God is our trust;"And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!F. S. Key.
Higher, higher, will we climb,Up the mount of glory,That our names may live through timeIn our country's story;Happy, when her welfare calls,He who conquers, he who falls.
Deeper, deeper, let us toil,In the mines of knowledge;Nature's wealth, and learning's spoil,Win from school and college;Delve we then for richer gemsThan the stars of diadems.
Onward, onward, may we pressThrough the path of duty;Virtue is true happiness,Excellence true beauty.Minds are of celestial birth;Make we then a heaven of earth.
Closer, closer, let us knitHearts and hands together,Where our fireside comforts sit,In the wildest weather;O! they wander wide who roamFor the joys of life from home!J. Montgomery.
There is a land, of every land the pride,Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside;Where brighter suns dispense serener light,And milder moons imparadise the night;A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth.
The wandering mariner, whose eye exploresThe wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;In every clime, the magnet of his soul,Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;For in this land of Heaven's peculiar grace,The heritage of Nature's noblest race,There is a spot of earth supremely blest,A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,Where man, creation's tyrant, casts asideHis sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,While, in his softened looks, benignly blendThe sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life!In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,An angel-guard of loves and graces lie;Around her knees domestic duties meet,And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?Art thou a man?—a patriot?—look around;O! thou shalt find, however thy footsteps roam,That land thy country, and that spot thy home!J. Montgomery.
Hear the sledges with the bells—Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that over sprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Hear the mellow wedding bells—Golden bells!What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!Through the balmy air of nightHow they ring out their delight!From the molten-golden notes,All in time,What a liquid ditty floatsTo the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloatsOn the moon!O, from out the sounding cells,What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!How it swells,How it dwellsOn the future! how it tellsOf rapture that impelsTo the swinging and the ringingOf the bells, bells, bells,Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
Hear the loud alarum bells—Brazen bells!What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!In the startled ear of nightHow they scream out their affright!Too much horrified to speak,They can only shriek, shriek,Out of time,In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,Leaping higher, higher, higher,With a desperate desire,And a resolute endeavor,Now—now to sit, or never,By the side of the pale-faced moon.O, the bells, bells, bells!What a tale their terror tellsOf Despair!How they clang, and clash, and roar!What a horror they outpourOn the bosom of the palpitating air!Yet the ear, it fully knows,By the twangingAnd the clanging,How the danger sinks and swells,By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—Of the bellsOf the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
Hear the tolling of the bells—Iron bells!What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!In the silence of the night,How we shiver with affrightAt the melancholy menace of their tone!For every sound that floatsFrom the rust within their throatsIs a groan.And the people—ah, the people—They that dwell up in the steeple,All alone,And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,In that muffled monotone,Feel a glory in so rollingOn the human heart a stoneThey are neither man nor woman—They are neither brute nor humanThey are Ghouls;And their king it is who tolls;And he rolls, rolls, rolls,RollsA paean from the bells!And his merry bosom swells with the paean of the bells!And he dances, and he yells;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the paean of the bells—Of the bells:Keeping time, time, timeIn a sort of Runic rhyme,To the throbbing of the bells—Of the bells, bells, bells—To the sobbing of the bells;Keeping time, time, time,As he knells, knells, knells,In a happy Runic rhyme,To the rolling of the bells—Of the bells, bells, bells;To the tolling of the bells—Of the bells, bells, bells, bells;Bells, bells, bells—To the moaning and the groaning of the bells!E. A. Poe.
Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."'T is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—Only this, and nothing more."
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow;From my books, surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore—Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtainThrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,"'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber doorSome late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;This it is, and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,"Sir," said I, "or madam truly your forgiveness I implore;But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you"—here I opened wide the door;—Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;But the silence was unbroken and the darkness gave no token,And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon I heard again a tapping somewhat louder than before."Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—'T is the wind, and nothing more!"
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore:Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,—Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,—Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sureno craven,Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the Nightly shore—Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainlyThough its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;For we cannot help agreeing that no living human beingEver yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door—With such a name as "Nevermore."
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke onlyThat one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.Nothing further then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before—On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disasterFollowed fast, and followed faster, till his songs one burden boreTill the dirges of his Hope the melancholy burden bore—Of 'Nevermore'—'Nevermore'"
But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust,and door;Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linkingFancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yoreMeant in croaking, "Nevermore."
Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressingTo the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease recliningOn the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen Censor,Swung by angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor."Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee—by these angelshe hath sent theeRespite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet," said I, "thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!By that heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden,It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked,upstarting—"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from of my door!"Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sittingOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming,And the lamp-light, o'er him streaming, throws his shadow on the floor;And my soul from out that shadow, that lies floating on the floor—Shall be lifted—nevermore!E. A. Poe.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said,—"This is my own,—my native land!"Whose heart hath never within him burned,As home his footsteps he hath turned,From wandering on a foreign strand?If such there breathe, go mark him well,—For him,—no minstrel raptures swell!High though his titles, proud his name,Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;Despite those titles, power, and pelf,The wretch concentered all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renown,And doubly dying, shall go downTo the vile dust from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonored and unsung!Sir W. Scott.
Young Lochinvar is come out of the West!Through all the wide Border his steed is the best;And save his good broadsword he weapon had none;—He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,There never was knight like the young Lochinvar!
He staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone;He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;—But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,The bride had consented—the gallant came late;For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!
So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,Among tribesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all.Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword—For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word—"O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war?—Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
"I long wooed your daughter;—my suit you denied:Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide!And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,To lead but one measure—drink one cup of wine.There be maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far,That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar!"
The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up—He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup!She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,—With a smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye.He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar;—"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lively her face,That never a hall such a galliard did grace!While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,And the bridemaidens whispered, "'T were better, by far,To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar!"
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear—When they reached the hall door, where the charger stood near;So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,So light to the saddle before her he sprung!—"She is won!—we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" cried young Lochinvar.
There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie lea!But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see!—So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar!Sir W. Scott.
The train from out the castle drew;But Marmion stopped to bid adieu:—"Though something I might plain," he said,"Of cold respect to stranger guest,Sent hither by your king's behest,While in Tantallon's towers I stayed,—Part we in friendship from your land,And, noble earl, receive my hand."But Douglas round him drew his cloak,Folded his arms, and thus he spoke:—"My manors, halls, and bowers, shall stillBe open, at my sovereign's will,To each one whom he lists, howe'erUnmeet to be the owner's peer.My castles are my king's alone,From turret to foundation-stone;—The hand of Douglas is his own;And never shall in friendly graspThe hand of such as Marmion clasp!"Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire,And shook his very frame for ire,And—"This to me!" he said,—"An 't were not for thy hoary beard,Such hand as Marmion's had not sparedTo cleave the Douglas' head!And, first, I tell thee, Haughty peer,He who does England's message here,Although the meanest in her state,May well, proud Angus, be thy mate!And, Douglas, more I tell thee here,E'en in thy pitch of pride,Here, in thy hold, thy vassals near—(Nay, never look upon your lord,And lay your hands upon your sword,)I tell thee, thou'rt defied!And if thou said'st I am not a peerTo any lord in Scotland here,Lowland or Highland, far or near,Lord Angus, thou hast lied!"On the earl's cheek the flush of rageO'ercame the ashen hue of age:Fierce he broke forth: "And darest thou, then,To beard the lion in his den,—The Douglas in his hall?And hopest thou hence unscathed to go?No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no!—Up drawbridge, grooms! what, warder, ho!Let the portcullis fall."Lord Marmion turned,—well was his need,—And dashed the rowels in his steed,Like arrow through the archway sprung;The ponderous gate behind him rung:To pass, there was such scanty room,The bars, descending, razed his plume.
The steed along the drawbridge flies,Just as it trembled on the rise;Not lighter does the swallow skimAlong the smooth lake's level brim:And when Lord Marmion reached his band,He halts, and turns with clenched hand,A shout of loud defiance pours,And shakes his gauntlet at the towers!Sir W. Scott.
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, pibroch of Donuil,Wake thy wild voice anew, summon Clan Conuil.Come away, come away, hark to the summons!Come in your war-array, gentles and commons.Come from deep glen, and from mountain so rocky;The war-pipe and pennon are at Inverlocky.Come every hill-plaid, and true heart that wears one,Come every steel blade, and strong hand that bears one.Leave untended the herd, the flock without shelter;Leave the corpse uninterred, the bride at the altar;Leave the deer, leave the steer, leave nets and barges:Come with your fighting gear, broadswords and targes.Come as the winds come, when forests are rended,Come as the waves come, when navies are stranded:Faster come, faster come, faster and faster,Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master.Fast they come, fast they come; see how they gather!Wide waves the eagle plume, blended with heather.Cast your plaids, draw your blades, forward each man set!Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, knell for the onset!Sir W. Scott.
The king stood stillTill the last echo died; then, throwing offThe sackcloth from his brow, and laying backThe pall from the still features of his child,He bowed his head upon him, and broke forthIn the resistless eloquence of woe:—
"Alas! my noble boy! that thou shouldst die!Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair!That death should settle in thy glorious eye,And leave his stillness in this clustering hair!How could he mark thee for the silent tomb,My proud boy, Absalom!
"Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill,As to my bosom I have tried to press thee!How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee,And hear thy sweet 'My father!' from those dumbAnd cold lips, Absalom!
"But death is on thee; I shall hear the gushOf music, and the voices of the young;And life will pass me in the mantling blush,And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;—But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt comeTo meet me, Absalom!
"And oh! when I am stricken, and my heart,Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken,How will its love for thee, as I depart,Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token!It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom,To see thee. Absalom!
"And now, farewell! 'T is hard to give thee up,With death so like a gentle slumber on thee!—And thy dark skin!—oh! I could drink the cup,If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,My lost boy Absalom!"
He covered up his face, and bowed himselfA moment on his child; then, giving himA look of melting tenderness, he claspedHis hands convulsively as if in prayer;And, as if strength were given him of God,He rose up calmly, and composed the pallFirmly and decently—and left him there,As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.N. P. Willis.
Look not upon the wine when itIs red within the cup!Stay not for pleasure when she fillsHer tempting beaker up!
Though clear its depths, and rich its glow,A spell of madness lurks below.They say 't is pleasant on the lip,And merry on the brain;
They say it stirs the sluggish blood,And dulls the tooth of pain.Ay—but within its glowing deepsA stinging serpent, unseen, sleeps.
Its rosy lights will turn to fire,Its coolness change to thirst;And, by its mirth, within the brainA sleepless worm is nursed.There's not a bubble at the brimThat does not carry food for him.
Then dash the brimming cup aside,And spill its purple wine;Take not its madness to thy lip—Let not its curse be thine.'T is red and rich but grief and woeAre in those rosy depths below.N. P. Willis.
Day was breaking,When at the altar of the temple stoodThe holy priest of God. The incense lampBurned with a struggling light, and a low chantSwelled through the hollow arches of the roof,Like an articulate wail; and there, alone,Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.The echoes of the melancholy strainDied in the distant aisles, and he rose up,Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his headUnto the sprinkled ashes, and put offHis costly raiment for the leper's garb,And with the sackcloth round him, and his lipHid in a loathsome covering, stood still,Waiting to hear his doom:—
"Depart! depart, O childOf Israel, from the temple of thy God!For He has smote thee with His chastening rod,And to the desert-wild,From all thou lov'st, away thy feet must flee,That from thy plague His people may be free.
"Depart! and come not nearThe busy mart, the crowded city, more;Nor set thy foot a human threshold o'er.And stay thou not to hearVoices that call thee in the way; and flyFrom all who in the wilderness pass by.
"Wet not thy burning lipIn streams that to a human dwelling glide;Nor rest thee where the covert fountains hide;Nor kneel thee down to dipThe water where the pilgrim bends to drink,By desert well, or river's grassy brink.
"And pass not thou betweenThe weary traveller and the cooling breeze;And lie not down to sleep beneath the treesWhere human tracks are seen;Nor milk the goat that browseth on the plainNor pluck the standing corn, or yellow grain.
"And now depart! and whenThy heart is heavy, and thine eyes are dim,Lift up thy prayer beseechingly to Him,Who, from the tribes of men,Selected thee to feel His chastening rod—Depart! O leper! and forget not God!"
And he went forth—alone! not one of allThe many whom he loved, nor she whose nameWas woven in the fibres of the heartBreaking within him now, to come and speakComfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,Sick and heart-broken, and alone—to die!For God had cursed the leper!
It was noon,And Helon knelt beside a stagnant poolIn the lone wilderness, and bathed his brow,Hot with the burning leprosy, and touchedThe loathsome water to his fevered lips,Praying he might be so blest—to die!Footsteps approached, and with no strength to flee,He drew the covering closer on his lip,Crying, "Unclean!—unclean!" and in the foldsOf the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his face,He fell upon the earth till they should pass.Nearer the Stranger came, and bending o'erThe leper's prostrate form, pronounced his name—"Helon!" The voice was like the master-toneOf a rich instrument—most strangely sweet;And the dull pulses of disease awoke,And for a moment beat beneath the hotAnd leprous scales with a restoring thrill."Helon arise!" And he forgot his curse,And rose and stood before him.