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Lightens the load of lance and gun, the weight of ringing steel, Whose biting ball and sharp swift fall, the assassin soon shall feel.

Now sinketh in the tall cane-brake, the long thin line of spears; Now on the crest, the vengeful gleam of bayonets appears; Now from his lair in rock and cave, the opposing foe they thrust And pass, but leave along the rear the battle's blood and dust; By night, by day, without a stay, right onward rolled their band, Till under Cawnpore's wall they met the fierce lord of that land.

Scant time for breath-life and black death hang on the passing hour;

The thunder breaks less sullenly, when heavy storm-clouds lour,
Than broke on those dark traitorous files, the fury of the few
Whose eager eyes beheld at last the sought-for caitiff crew;
Once only, as the dastard crowd their heavy cannon plied,
And swept with hissing hail of grape the green hill's level side,
But once they paused, and crouching down under that deadly
rain,

Waited with noble patience that mocked at grief and pain-
Waited, till, waving the true steel, brave Havelock cried aloud,
Enough, boys; up! take out these guns and clear away this
crowd."

66

Then up they sprang, and high out rang, the long loud British cheer,

The saddest sound on all the earth for the oppressor's ear;
And with set feet at equal beat, and steel at equal slant,

Like blood-hounds on the view halloo, all fanged and grim and gaunt,

Out flew they then, on rushed they then-a crash! and once again

The Highlanders of Havelock held the red battle plain.

WHAT spell was good King Robert's, say,

To drive the weary night away?

His was the patriot's burning thought,
Of Freedom's battle bravely fought,
Of castles stormed, of cities freed,
Of deep design and daring deed,
Of England's roses reft and torn,
And Scotland's cross in triumph worn,
Of rout and rally, war and truce-
As heroes think, so thought the Bruce.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Blank Verse.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY

SHAKESPEARE'S "HAMLET."

DEATH.

(17)

To be, or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them ?-To die,—to sleep,—
No more? and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die,—to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action.

CATO'S SOLILOQUY

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE

JOSEPH ADDISON'S "CATO."

SOUL.

(CATO sitting in a thoughtful posture: in his hand Plato's book on the Immortality of the Soul: a drawn sword on the table beside him).

Ir must be so; Plato, thou reasonest well !-
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
"Tis the Divinity that stirs within us:
"Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity! Thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.

Here will I hold: If there's a Power above us,
(And that there is, all nature cries aloud
Through all her works), He must delight in virtue ;
And that which He delights in, must be happy.
But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar?
I'm weary of conjectures: This must end them.

(Laying his hand on his sword).

Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me:
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

ON HIS

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY
MOTHER'S MARRIAGE."

SHAKESPEARE'S "HAMLET."

O, THAT this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

(18)

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fye on 't! O fye! 't is an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead ;-nay, not so much, not two;

So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't-Frailty, thy name is woman!-
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears,-why she, even she,-

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourned longer,-married with mine uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: Within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married:

It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY
JRRESOLUTION.

(19)

SHAKESPEARE'S HAMLET."

Now I am alone.

ON HIS

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I !
Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his whole conceit,
That from her working, all his visage wanned;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,

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