CXLIII.-DARKNESS.

FROM BYRON.

1. I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
+Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day
And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light.

2. And they did live by watch-fires; and the thrones,
The palaces of crownèd kings, the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes and their mountain torch.

3. A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire; but, hour by hour,
They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks
Extinguished with a crash; and all was black.
The brows of men, by the despairing light,
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down,
And hid their eyes, and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clinchèd hands, and smiled,
And others hurried to and fro, and fed

4.

Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again,
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnashed their teeth, and howled.

The wild birds shrieked.
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came, tame and tremulous; and vipers crawled
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless: they were slain for food;
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; a meal was bought

With blood, and each sat sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought-and that was death,
Immediate and tinglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails; men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh.

5. The meager by the meager were devoured;
Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress, he died.

6. The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

7.

And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,

Where had been heaped a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And, shivering, scraped, with their cold, skeleton hands,

The feeble ashes, and they made a flame

Which was a mockery; then, they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects; saw, and shrieked, and died:
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend.

The world was void;

The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless;
A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still,

And nothing stirred within their silent depths;

Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropped,

They slept on the abyss without a surge.

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave;

The moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were withered in the stagnant air,

And the clouds perished. Darkness had no need
Of aid from them. She was the universe.

CXLIV. PRINCE HENRY AND FALSTAFF.

FROM SHAKSPEARE.

PRINCE HENRY and POINS, in a back room, in a tavern. Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO.

Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been? Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether stocks, and mend them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue *extant? [He drinks, and then continues.] You rogue, here's lime in this sack there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt: if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged, in England; and one of them is fat and grows old; a bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms, or any thing. A plague of all cowards, I say still.

Prince Henry. How now, +wool-sack? What mutter you? Fal. Thou art a king's son! Now, if I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales!

P. Henry. Why, you base-born dog! What's the matter? Fal. Are you not a coward? Answer me to that; and Poins there?

[thee.

Poins. Ye fat braggart, an ye call me coward, I'll stab Fal. I call thee coward? I'll see thee gibbeted, ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pounds I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back: call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack. I

am a rogue, if I have drunk to-day. P. Henry. O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped, since thou drank'st last.

Fal. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, still Say I.

P. Henry. What's the matter?

[He drinks.

Fal. What's the matter! There be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pounds this morning.

P. Henry. Where is it, Jack? where is it?

Fal. Where is it?

poor four of us.

Taken from us it is; a hundred upon

P. Henry. What! a hundred, man?

Fal. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them, for two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four, through the hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a hand-saw; look here! [shows his sword.] I never dealt better since I was a man; all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let them speak; [pointing to GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO,] if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness. P. Henry. Speak, sirs; how was it?

Gadshill. We four, set upon some dozen-
Fal. Sixteen, at least, my lord.

Gad. And bound them.

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew, else-an Ebrew Jew.

[upon usGad. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set Fal. And unbound the rest; and then come in the other. P. Henry. What! fought ye with them all?

Fal. All? I know not what ye call all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish: if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then I am no two-legged creature.

Poins. Pray heaven, you have not murdered some of them. Fal. Nay, that 's past praying for; for I have *peppered two of them; two I am sure I have paid; two rogues in †buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, and call me a horse. Thou knowest my old ward; [He draws his sword, and stands as if about to fight,] here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me

P. Henry. What! four? Thou saidst but two even now. Fal. Four, Hal; I told thee four.

Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.

Fal. These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made no more ado, but took all their seven points on my *target, thus.

P. Henry. Seven? Why, there were but four, even now. Fal. In buckram?

Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.

Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.

P. Henry. Prithee, let him alone; we shall have more tanon.

Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?

P. Henry. Ay, and mark thee, too, Jack.

Fal. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine men in buckram, that I told thee of―

P. Henry. So, two more already.

Fal. Their points being broken, began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in foot and hand; and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.

P. Henry. O, monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

Fal. But three knaves, in Kendal green, came at my back, and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.

the father of them; gross Why, thou clay-brained,

P. Henry. These lies are like as a mountain, open, *palpable. knotty-pated fool; thou greasy tallow-keech

Fal. What! Art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?

P. Henry. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason; what sayest thou to this? Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.

Fal. What, upon compulsion? No, were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on +compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason on compulsion.

P. Henry. I'll no longer be guilty of this sin: this san