poor factory girl, Martha Gibbs. Now, don't jump! [Hading Jasper down.]
Jas. Martha Gibbs! Ha, ha, ha! Come, I like this. There's some character about such abominable audacity! It tickles one to have one's hair stand on end! Degenerate offspring! do you want to be the death of the house of Plum? And do you think I'll ever sanction such an alliance for a son of mine? Never, never! The voice of all your ancestors exclaims, Never! never!
Ste. Then I wish my ancestors would just speak when they're spoke to.
Jas Reflect, rash youth, what was this creature, Martha? A beggar, asking charity!
Ste. No, she asked for wages, and paid you with hard work.
Jas. And who was she? I ask for her ancestry; she never had any. I ask for her parents; I don't believe she ever had any.
Ste. Never had a father and mother? Then warn't she a clever girl to manage to do without? Ho, ho, ho!
Jas. Reflect like a man, Sir, and don't laugh like a horse! I'll turn that intriguing hussy, Martha Gibbs, out of the house, this very day!
Ste. Stop, dad; you don't, you can't mean that?
Jas. I do mean that, and I'll do it!
Ste. No, you won't you may save yourself the trouble now, and the pain afterwards. Martha has given notice; she means to quit the factory to-morrow morning.
Jas. A pleasant journey to her!
Ste. I hope so, 'cause I go along with her.
Jas. What did you say, Sir?
Ste. I go along with her.
Jas. You, Stephen! go and leave — O, Stephen!
Ste. Perhaps it's best it should be so; long 's the day I've seen my father and brother are ashamed of me.
Ste. And you'd have me marry a fine lady, who'd be ashamed of me, too; but I won't. So, if you won't have us near you, why Martha and I must love you far away.
Jas. Well, I'll reflect, let me have time to reflect.
Ste. That's but fair; I'll give you lots of time. [Looking at his watch.] I'll give you five-and-twenty minutes.
Ste. Well, I don't mind making it half an hour; now, mind, in thirty minutes I'll return for your yes or no. If it's "No," I must pack up my carpet-bag, 'cause I can't go into the wide world without a change of linen. [Erit.]
Jas. I shall run distracted! Stephen Plum, if you 've any lingering love for your half-expiring father Stephen, I say! hour, indeed! that the house of Plum should come to this!
80. THE UNION AND ITS GOVERNMENT.-Wm. Gilmore Simms.
We hold to be the creature of our need, Having no power but where necessity
Still, under guidance of the Charter, gives it. Our taxes raised to meet our exigence,
And not for waste or favorites. Our People Left free to share the commerce of the world, Without one needless barrier on their prows. Our industry at liberty for venture,
Neither abridged nor pampered; and no calling Preferred before another, to the ruin
Or wrong of either. These, Sir, are my doctrines They are the only doctrines which shall keep us From anarchy, and that worst peril yet, That threatens to dissever, in the tempest, That married harmony of hope with power That keeps our starry Union o'er the storm, And, in the sacred bond that links our fortunes, Makes us defy its thunders! Thus in one, The foreign despot threatens us in vain. Guizot and Palmerston may fret to see us Grasping the empires which they vainly covet, And stretching forth our trident o'er the seas, In rivalry with Britain. They may confine, But cannot chain us. Balances of power, Framed by corrupt and cunning monarchists, Weigh none of our possessions; and the seasons That mark our mighty progress East and West, Show Europe's struggling millions fondly seeking The better shores and shelters that are ours.
31. COLONNA TO THE KING.-Richard Lalor Shiel.
THE favor that I ask is one, my liege, That princes often find it hard to grant. "T is simply this: that you will hear the truth. I see your courtiers here do stand amazed: Of them I first would speak. There is not one, Of this wide troop of glittering parasites, That circle you, as priests surround their god, With sycophantic incense, but in soul
Is your base foe! These smilers here, my liege Whose dimples seem a sort of honey-comb, Filled and o'erflowing with their suavity,- These soft, melodious flatterers, my liege, That flourish on the flexibility
Of their soft countenances, are the vermin That haunt a prince's ear with the false buzz Of villanous assentation. These are they Who from your mind have flouted every thought Of the great weal of the People. These are they Who from your ears have shut the public cry. "Who dares complain of you?" All dare complain Behind you; I, before you! Do not think, Because you load your People with the weight Of camels, they possess the camel's patience. A deep groan labors in the nation's heart, The very calm and stillness of the day Gives augury of the earthquake. All without Is as the marble smooth; and all within Is rotten as the carcass it contains. Though ruin knock not at the palace gate, Yet will the palace gate unfold itself To ruin's felt-shod tread.
Your gorgeous banquets, your high feasts of gold, Which the four quarters of the rifled world Heap with their ravished luxuries; your pomps, Your palaces, and all the sumptuousness Of painted royalty, will melt away, As in a theatre the glittering scene Doth vanish with the shifter's magic hand, And the mock pageant perishes. My liege, A single virtuous action hath more worth Than all the pyramids; and glory writes A more enduring epitaph upon
One generous deed, than the sarcophagus In which Sesostris meant to sleep.
32. ADDRESS TO THE SWISS.- Adaptation from Schiller's play of Wiliam Tell CONFEDERATES, listen to the words which God Inspires my heart withal. Here we are met To represent the general weal. In us Are all the People of the land convened. Then let us hold the Diet, as of old, And as we 're wont in peaceful times to do. The time's necessity be our excuse,
If there be aught informal in this meeting. Still, wheresoe'er men strike for justice, there Is God; and now beneath His Heaven we stand.. The Nations round us bear a foreign yoke; For they have yielded to the conqueror. Nay, e'en within our frontiers may be found Some that owe villein service to a lord,
A race of bonded serfs from sire to sou. But we, the genuine race of ancient Swiss, Have kept our freedom, from the first, till now. Never to princes have we bowed the knee What said our fathers when the Emperor Pronounced a judgment in the Abbey's favor, Awarding lands beyond his jurisdiction?
What was their answer? This: "The grant is void; No Emperor can bestow what is our own; And if the Empire shall deny us justice,
We can, within our mountains, right ourselves." Thus spake our fathers; and, shall we endure The shame and infamy of this new yoke; And, from the vassal, brook what never king Dared, in the fulness of his power, attempt? This soil we have created for ourselves, By the hard labor of our hands; we've changed The giant forest, that was erst the haunt Of savage bears, into a home for man; Blasted the solid rock; o'er the abyss Thrown the firm bridge for the way-faring man. By the possession of a thousand years, The soil is ours. And, shall an alien lord, Himself a vassal, dare to venture here, On our own hearths insult us, and attempt To forge the chains of bondage for our hands, And do us shame on our own proper soil? Is there no help against such wrong as this? Yes! there's a limit to the despot's power. When the oppressed looks round in vain for justice. When his sore burden may no more be borne, With fearless heart, he makes appeal to Heaven, And thence brings down his everlasting rights, Which there abide, inalienably his,
And indestructible as are the stars. Nature's primeval state returns again, Where man stands hostile to his fellow-man; And, if all other means shall fail his need, One last resource remains his own good sword! Our dearest treasures call to us for aid
Against the oppressor's violence; we stand For country, home, for wives, for children, here!
33. WILLIAM TELL IN WAIT FOR GESSLER. — Schiller.
HERE through this deep defile he needs must pass There leads no other road to Küssnacht :- - here I'll do it the opportunity is good.
Yon alder-tree stands well for my concealment,
Thence my avenging shaft will surely reach him; The straitness of the path forbids pursuit.
Now, Gessler, balance thine account with Heaven! Thou must away from earth,
I led a peaceful, inoffensive life;
My bow was bent on forest game alone,
And my pure soul was free from thoughts of murder, - But thou hast scared me from my dream of peace; The milk of human kindness thou hast turned
To rankling poison in my breast; and made Appalling deeds familiar to my soul.
He who could make his own child's head his mark Can speed his arrow to his foeman's heart.
My children dear, my loved and faithful wife, Must be protected, tyrant, from thy fury!— When last I drew my bow, with trembling hand, And thou, with murderous joy, a father forced To level at his child, — when, all in vain, Writhing before thee, I implored thy mercy,- Then, in the agony of my soul, I vowed
A fearful oath, which met God's ear alone, That when my bow next winged an arrow's flight, Its aim should be thy heart. The vow I made, Amid the hellish torments of that moment, I hold a sacred debt, and I will pay it.
Thou art my lord, my Emperor's delegate; Yet would the Emperor not have stretched his power So far as thou. He sent thee to these Cantons
To deal forth law, - stern law, for he is angered; But not to wanton with unbridled will
In every cruelty, with fiend-like joy :— There is a God to punish and avenge.
Well, I am watching for a noble prey! Does not the huntsman, with severest toil, Roam for whole days amid the winter's cold, Leap with a daring bound from rock to rock, And climb the jagged, slippery steeps, to which His limbs are glued by his own streaming blood, - And all this but to gain a wretched chamois? A far more precious prize is now my aim, The heart of that dire foe who would destroy me.
From my first years of boyhood I have used The bow, been practised in the archer's feats; The bull's eye many a time my shafts have hit, And many a goodly prize have I brought home, Won in the games of skill. This day I'll make My master-shot, and win the highest prize
Within the whole circumference of the mountains.
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