Ye stand here, now, like giants, as ye are. The strength of brass is in your toughened fibers. Listen! Hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted meat; but to-morrow, he shall break his fast upon your flesh. Ye will be a dainty meal for him. If ye are brutes, then stand like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's knife. But if ye are men, then FOLLOW ME! Strike down yon sentinel, and gain the mountain passes; and then do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopyla! Is Sparta dead? is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins? that you do crouch and cower, like a belabored hound, beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! If we must fight, let us fight for ourselves. If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors. If we must die, let us die under the free sky, by the bright waters, in NOBLE, HONORABLE BATTLE! FROM KELLOGG. CIII. THE GLADIATOR. GYVES; pro. jives, fetters for the legs. The lord of Afric's sun-scorched plain; They brought a dark-haired man along, Whose limbs with gyves of brass were bound; Then shouted the plebeian crowd, Rung the glad galleries with the sound; By Rome, earth's monarch crowned, And thus, with laughing eye, spake he: "Loose ye the lord of Zaara's waste; And let my arms be free: 'He has a martial heart,' thou sayest, But oh! who will not be A hero, when he fights for life, And home, and country; babes and wife? The broad orb; but to lion's wrath And he has bared his shining blade, And springs he on the shaggy foe; Dreadful the strife, but briefly played; The desert-king lies low. "Kneel down, Rome's emperor beside!" He knelt, that dark man; o'er his brow Was thrown a wreath in crimson died; And fair words gild it now: "Thou'rt the bravest youth that ever tried To lay a lion low; And from our presence forth thou go'st Then flushed his cheek, but not with pride, "My wife sits at the cabin door, With throbbing heart and swollen eyes; While tears her cheek are coursing o'er, She speaks of sundered ties. She bids my tender babes deplore The death their father dies; She tells these jewels of my home, I bleed to please the rout of Rome. "I can not let those cherubs stray He's gone! no golden bribes divide CIV.-DEATH OF MARMION. WITH that, straight up the hill there rode A wounded knight they bore. His hand still strained the broken band; With dinted shield, and helmet beat, Can that be haughty Marmion? When, doffed his casque, he felt free air, Around 'gan Marmion wildly stare: "Where's Harry Blount? Fitz-Eustace where ? Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare? They parted, and alone he lay. Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring, Q, woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, By the light quivering aspen made; Scarce were the piteous accents said, Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears: She filled the helm, and back she hied, A monk supporting Marmion's head; And that the priest he could not hear; For that she ever sung, “In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!" So the notes rung: "Avoid thee, Fiend! with cruel hand, Shake not the dying sinner's sand! O look, my son, upon yon sign The war, that for a space did fail, A light on Marmion's visage spread, With dying hand, above his head, He shook the fragment of his blade, And shouted "Victory! Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" FROM SCOTT. CV.-OTHELLO AND IAGO. IAGO, under pretense of friendship, is OTHELLO's enemy, and to be revenged on him, attempts, in the following scene, to excite his jealousy of his innocent wife. The cunning of Iago and the rising of jealousy in Othello, are admirably portrayed. Iago. Did Michael Cassio, when you wooed my lady, Know of your love? Oth. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask? lago. But for the satisfaction of my thought; No further harm. Oth. What of thy thought, Iago? Iago. I did not think he had been acquainted with her. Iago. Indeed! Oth. Indeed! indeed! Discern'st thou aught in that? Is he not honest? Iago. Honest, my lord? Oth. Honest? ay, honest. Iago. My lord, for aught I know. Oth. What dost thou think? Iago. Think, my lord? Oth. Think, my lord! Thou echo'st me, As if there were some monster in thy thought, Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something: When Cassio left my wife: What didst not like? In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, "Indeed!” Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, |