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that living one, and therefore did its echo seem so frightful!—If 'twere to do again, I would not kill thee: wilt thou not be contented? But thou sayest, "My father was a father to thee also, he watched thy infant years, he gave thee all that youth could ask, and scarcely manhood came than came a kingdom also; yet didst thou -Oh!—I am faint-they have not brought me food-how did I not perceive it until now? Gods-I'm in tears !-I did not think of weeping. Oh, Marius, wilt thou-ever feel like this ?-Ha! I behold the ruins of a city; and, on a craggy fragment, sits a form that seems in ruins also: how unmoved-how stern he looks! Amazement! it is Marius! Ha! Marius! think'st thou now upon Jugurtha ? He turns-he's caught my eye!--I see no more!

XXXV. CATILINE'S DEFIANCE.

CONSCRIPT FATHERS:

I do not rise to waste the night in words;

Let that Plebeian talk, 'tis not my trade;
But here I stand for right—let him show proofs.—
For Roman right, though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there!
Cling to your master, judges, Romans, slaves!
His charge is false;—I dare him to his proofs.
You have my answer. Let my actions speak!

But this 1 will avow, that I have scorned
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong.
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me-turning out
The Roman from his birthright; and for what?

To fling your offices to every slave !

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler man below.

Come, consecrated Lictors, from your thrones ;

[To the Senate.]

Fling down your sceptres; take the rod and axe,
And make the murder as you make the law.
Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free
From daily contact of the things I loathe?

"Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this?
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?

Banished! I thank you for't. It breaks my chain!
I held some slack allegiance till this hour;
But now my sword's my own.

Smile on, my Lords!

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,

To leave you in your lazy dignities.
But here I stand and scoff you! here I fling

Hatred and full defiance in your face!

Your Consul's merciful;-for this, all thanks.
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline!

"Traitor!" I go; but I return! This-trial! Here I devote you Senate ! I've had wrongs

To stir a fever in the blood of age.

Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel.

This day's the birth of sorrow; this hour's work

Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my Lords!

For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods,

Shapes hot from Tartarus; all shames and crimes;
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and axe,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night,
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave.

I go; but not to leap the gulf alone.
I go; but when I come, 'twill be the burst
Of ocean in the earthquake,-rolling back
In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!
You build my funeral pile; but your best blood
Shall quench its flame! Back, slaves!

[To the Lictors.]

I will return.

XXXVI.-CATO ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE

SOUL.
ADDISON.

IT must be so;-Plato, thou reason'st well,

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into naught? 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, th'unbounded prospect lies before me;

But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.

Here will I hold :-If there's 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.

Thus I am 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.

XXXVII.—RIENZI'S ADDRESS.

M. R. MITFORD.

RIENDS: I come not here to talk! Ye know too well

JR

The story of our thraldom ;—we are slaves !

The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave !-not such as, swept along
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame;

But base, ignoble slaves-slaves to a horde

Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords,

Rich in some dozen paltry villages,

Strong in some hundred spearmen--only great

In that strange spell, a name! Eech hour, dark fraud,
Or open rapine, or protected murder,

Cries out against them. But this very day,

An honest man, my neighbor-there he stands—

Was struck-struck like a dog-by one who wore

The badge of Ursini! because, forsooth,

He tossed not high his ready cap in air,

Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts,

At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men,

And sufier such dishonor? Such shames are common.
I have known deeper wrongs. I that speak to you,

I had a brother once, a gracious boy,

Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,

Of sweet and quite joy; there was the look

Of heaven upon his face, which limners give
To the beloved disciple. How I loved
That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years,
Brother at once and son? He left my side,
A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour,
The pretty, harmless boy was slain ! I saw

The corpse, the mangled sorpse, and then I cried
For vengeance! Rouse, ye Romans! rouse, ye slaves!
Have ye brave sons? Look, in the next fierce brawl,
To see them die! Have ye fair daughters? Look
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,
Dishonored and if ye dare call for justice,
Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome,

That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne

Of beauty, ruled the world!

Yet we are Romans!

Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman

Was greater than a king!—and once again—
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus !- once again I swear,
The eternal city shall be free! her sons
Shall walk with princes!

XXXVIII. THE DEATH OF MINNEHAHA.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

THE long and dreary Winter! O the cold and cruel winter! Ever thicker, thicker, thicker, froze the ice on lake and river; ever deeper, deeper, deeper, fell the snow o'er all the landscape. Hardly from his buried wigwam could the hunter force a passage; vainly walked he through the forest; sought for bird or beast, and found none; in the ghastly, gleaming forest fell, and could not rise from weakness perished there from cold and hunger.

O the famine and the fever! O the wasting of the famine! O the blasting of the fever! O the wailing of the children! O the anguish of the woman! All the earth was sick and famished; hungry was the air around them, hungry was the sky above them, and the hungry stars in heaven, like the eyes of wolves, glared at them!

Into Hiawatha's wigwam came two guests; and silent, gloomy, sat without a word of welcome in the seat of Laughing Water; Famine one, the other Fever; and the lovely Minnehaha shuddered as they looked upon her, lay down on her bed in silence; lay there trembling, freezing, burning, at the looks they cast upon her, at the fearful words they uttered.

Forih into the empty forest rushed the maddened Hiawatha: "Gitche Manito, the Mighty!"' cried he with his face uplifted, in that bitter hour of anguish, "Give your children food, O Father! give us food, or we must perish! give me food for Minnehaha, for my dying Minnehaha !"Through the far resounding forest rang that cry of desolation; but there came no other answer than the echo of his crying, "Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"

In the wigwam with Nokomis, with those gloomy 'guests that watched her, with the Famine and the Fever, she was lying, the beloved, she-the dying Minnehaha. "Hark!" she said, "I hear a rushing, hear a roaring and a rushing; hear the Falls of Minnehaha calling to me from a distance!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis, "'tis the night-wind in the pine-trees!" "Look!'' she said; I see my father standing lonely at his doorway, beckoning to me from his wigwam, in the land of the Decotahs!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis, "'tis the smoke, that waves and beckons !" "Ah!" she said, the eyes of Pauguk glare upon me in the darkness; I can feel his icy fingers clasping mine amid the darkness! Hiawatha! Hiawatha !"And the desolate Hiawatha, far away amid the forest, miles away among the mountains, heard that sudden cry of anguish, heard the voice of Minnehaha calling to him in the darkness, "Hiawatha ! Hiawatha !''

Over snow-fields waste and pathless, under snow-encumbered branches, homeward hurried Hiawatha, empty-handed, heavy-hearted; heard Nokomis moining, wailing :-"Wahonomin! Wahonomin! would that I had perished for you! would that I were dead as you are! Wahonomin! Wahonomin !"

And he rushed into the wigwam: saw the old Nokomis slowly rocking to and fro, and moaning; saw his lovely Minnehaha lying dead and cold before him; and his bursting heart within him uttered such a cry of anguish, that the very stars in heaven shook and trembled with his anguish.

Then he sat down, still and speechless on the bed of Minnehaha, at the feet of Laughing Water; at those willing feet, that never more would lightly run to meet him, never more would lightly follow. Seven long days and nights he sat there, speechless, motionless, unconscious of the daylight or the darkness.

Then they buried Minnehaha in the forest deep and darksome, underneath the moaning hemlocks; wrapped her in her robes of ermine, covered her with snow, like ermine. On her grave a fire was lighted, for her soul upon its journey to the Island of the Blessed.

From his doorway Hiawatha watched it burning in the forest, that it might not be extinguished, might not leave her in the darkness. "Farewell!" said he, "Minnehaha! Farewell! O my Laughing Water ! All my heart is buried with you, all my thoughts go onward with you! Come not back, again to labor, come not back again to suffer, where the Famine and the Fever wear the heart and waste the body. Soon my task will be completed, soon your footsteps I shall follow to the Islands of the Blessed, to the kingdom of Ponemah, to the Land of the Hereafter !"

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