8.

9.

Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are - for this—for naught!

Grant me another year,

God of my spirit! - but a day, to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!
I would know something here!

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!

Vain - vain! - my brain is turning

With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing-burning-

Dying! O God! if I might only live!

My vial

10.

11.

12.

Ha! it thrills me! I revive.

O, but for time to track

The upper stars into the pathless sky,-
To see the invisible spirits, eye to eye, —

To hurl the lightning back,

To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls,-
To chase day's chariot to the horizon-walls,

And more, much more, for now

The life-sealed fountains of my nature move
To nurse and purify this human love;
To clear the godlike brow

Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one.

This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream,-
To live-O God! that life is but a dream!

And death

Cover me! save me!

Aha! I reel

Dim-dim-I faint-darkness comes o'er my eye;·

God of heaven! I die!

13. 'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, the expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long, silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild,
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.

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14. The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on the alembic's' rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.

15. And thus had passed from its unequal frame A soul of fire, a sun-bent eagle stricken

From his high soaring down, an instrument
Broken with its own compass. 0, how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea, ambition wrecked,-
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.

1 CRU'CI-BLE. A melting-pot used by 4 AG'O-NIZE. Feel agony; suffer exchemists and goldsmiths. treme pain.

2 HŎR'O-LŎGE. Something which 5 THRŌE. Extreme pain; pang. tells what hour it is; a time-piece. MYS'TIC. Secret; unrevealed. RE-CÖIL'. Motion backwards; re-A-LEM'BIC. A chemical vessel, used bound; a shrinking or faltering. in distillation.

29

CL.-SPEECH ON THE REFORM BILL

BROUGHAM.

[Henry Brougham, Lord Brougham, was born in Edinburgh in 1778, and died in 1868. He was eminent as a statesman, orator, lawyer, and man of letters. He was Lord Chancellor of England from 1830 to 1834. The following extract is from a speech delivered by him in favor of the reform bill, in the House of Lords, in October, 1831.]

1. MY LORDS: I do not disguise the intense solicitude which I feel for the event of this debate, because I know full well that the peace of the country is involved in the issue. I cannot look, without dismay, at the rejection of the measure.

2. But grievous as may be the consequences of a temporary defeat, for temporary it can only be, its ultimate and even speedy success is certain. Nothing can now stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded, that even if the present ministers' were driven from the helm, any one could steer you through the troubles which surround you, without reform. But our successors would take up the task in circumstances far less auspicious'. Under them you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with which, the one we now proffer you is moderate indeed.

3. Hear the parable of the Sibyl,* for it conveys a wise and wholesome moral. She now appears at your gate, and offers you mildly the volumes, the precious volumes, of wisdom and peace. The price she asks is reasonable - to restore the franchise3, which, without any bargain, you ought voluntarily to give. You refuse her terms, her moderate terms: she darkens the porch no longer.

* The Sibyls were prophetic women of Greece and Rome. The most celebrated one of them offered for sale to Tarquin, an early king of Rome, nine books of prophecies. When the king, on account of the high price, refused to buy them, the Sibyl threw three into the fire, and on a second refusal, three more, after which the king, alarmed, paid for the three remaining the price asked for the whole.

4. But soon -for you cannot do without her wares. - you call her back. Again she comes, but with diminished treasures. The leaves of the book are in part torn away by lawless hands, in part defaced with characters of blood. But the prophetic maid has risen in her demands. It is parliaments by the year—it is vote by the ballot - it is suffrage by the million!

5. From this you turn away indignant, and for the second time she departs. Beware of her third coming for the treasure you must have; and what price she may next demand, who shall tell? It may even be the mace which rests upon that woolsack".

5

6. What may follow your course of obstinacy, if persisted in, I cannot take upon me to predict, nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I know full well, that, as sure as man is mortal, and to err is human, justice deferred enhances the price at which you must purchase safety and peace; nor can you expect to gather in another crop than they did who went before you, if you persevere in their utterly abominable husbandry, of sowing injustice and reaping rebellion.

7. But among the awful considerations that now bow down my mind, there is one which stands preeminent above the rest. You are the highest judicature' in the realm; you sit here as judges, and decide all causes, civil and criminal, without appeal. It is a judge's first duty never to pronounce sentence, in the most trifling case, without hearing. Will you make this the exception?

8. Are you really prepared to determine, but not to hear, the mighty case upon which a nation's hopes and fears hang? You are. Then beware of your decision!

9. Rouse not, I beseech you, a peace-loving, but a resolute people; alienate not from your body the affections of a whole empire. As your friend, as the friend of my order, as the friend of my country, as the faithful servant

of my sovereign, I counsel you to assist, with your uttermost efforts, in preserving the peace, and upholding and perpetuating the constitution.

10. Therefore, I pray and I exhort you not to reject this measure. By all you hold most dear, by all the ties that bind every one of us to our common order and our common country, I solemnly adjure you, I warn you, I implore you, yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate youreject not this bill.

1 MIN'IS-TERS. Here, heads of the different departments of the government.

2 ÂU-SPICIOUs. Favorable; prosperous; fortunate.

8 FRANCHISE. A right reserved to the people by the constitution; as, "the elective franchise."

1 SUFFRAGE. Vote; right of voting.

before magistrates as the ensign of authority.

6 WOOL'SACK (wûl'-). The seat of the lord chancellor of England in the House of Lords, being a large, square bag of wool, without back or arms, covered with red cloth. JU'DI-CA-TŪRE. Court of justice; a tribunal.

7

5 MACE. An ornamental staff carried 8 AL'IẸN-ĀTE (-yen-). Estrange.

CII. ODE TO THE SEA-SERPENT.

1. FROM what abysses of the unfathomed sea Turnest thou up, Great Serpent, now and then, If we may venture to believe in thee,

And affidavits' of seafaring men?

2. What whirlpool gulf to thee affords a home?
Amid the unknown depths, where dost thou dwell?
If like the mermaid, with her glass and comb-
Thou art not what the vulgar call a "sell."

3. Art thou, indeed, a serpent, and no sham?
Or, if no serpent, a prodigious eel,
An entity3, though modified by flam*,

A basking-shark, or monstrous kind of seal ?