THE lust of kingdom knows no sacred faith,
No rule of reason, no regard of right,
No kindly love, no fear of Heaven's wrath:
But with contempt of God's and man's despight,
Through bloody slaughter doth prepare the ways
To fatal sceptre, and accursed reign:
The son so loathes the father's lingering days,
Nor dreads his hand in brother's blood to stain!
Is death more cruel from a private dagger,
Than in the field from murdering swords of thousands?
Or does the number slain make slaughter glorious?
And slaughter heaped on high its weltering ranks.
You have among you many a purchased slave,
Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them.
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No! dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
The Roman legions, boasting once how loud
Of liberty, and fighting bravely o'er
The torrid and the frigid zone, the sands
Of burning Egypt, and the frozen hills
Of snowy Albion, to make mankind
Their thralls, untaught, that he who made or kept A slave, could ne'er himself be truly free.
NEAR the Cimmerians, in his dark abode,
Deep in a cavern dwells the drowsy god;
An arm of Lethe, with a gentle flow
Arising upwards from the rock below,
The palace moats, and o'er the pebbles creeps,
And with soft murmurs calls the coming sleeps;
Around its entry nodding poppies grow,
And all cool simples that sweet rest bestow;
Night from the plants their sleepy virtue drains,
And passing, sheds it on the silent plains:
No door there was th' unguarded house to keep,
On creaking hinges turn'd, to break his sleep.
But in the gloomy court was raised a bed,
Stuff'd with black plumes, and on an ebon stead;
Black was the covering too where lay the god,
And slept supine, his limbs display'd abroad:
About his head fantastic visions fly,
Which various images of things supply,
And mock their forms; the leaves on trees not more,
Nor bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore.
Dryden, from Ovid. By him lay heavy sleep, the cousin of Death, Flat on the ground, and still as any stone, A very corpse, save yielding forth a breath; Small keep took he, whom fortune frowned on, Or whom she lifted up into the throne Of high renown; but as a living death, So dead alive, of life he drew the breath.
How happy is that balm to wretches, sleep!
No cares perplex them for their future state,
And fear of death thus dies in senseless sleep.
Unruly love is this way lulled to rest,
And injured honour, when redress is lost,
Is no way solved but this.
The only boon the wretched mind can feel;
A momentary respite from despair.
Tir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays,
Where fortune smiles-the wretched he forsakes.
When tir'd with vain rotations of the day,
Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn.-Young.
Oh! thou best comforter of the sad heart,
When fortune spite assails-come gentle sleep, The weary mourner soothe! For well the art Thou know'st in soft forgetfulness to steep The eyes which sorrow taught to watch and weep. Mrs. Tighe.
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest on the troubled sea of mind
Till it is hushed and smooth. O unconfined
Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key
To golden palaces-ay, all the world
Of silvery enchantment.
Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto minds afar,
Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if than any is,
For gift or grace surpassing this
"He giveth his beloved sleep."-Miss Barrett.
Thou hast been called, O sleep, the friend of woe,
But 't is the happy who have called thee so.
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
Sleep! to the homeless thou art home,
The friendless find in thee a friend;
And well is wheresoe'er we roam,
Who meets thee at his journey's end.
Life may not be without thee, gentle sleep,
But with thee;-'mid the desert, on the deep,
Still to the care-worn heart some joy remains,
Some sunny spot amid thy mystic plains.-R. Morris.
SLOTH-SLOW.
SEE the issue of your sloth:
Of sloth comes pleasure, of pleasure comes riot,
Of riot comes disease, of disease comes spending,
Of spending comes want, of want comes theft,
And of theft comes hanging.-Chapman and Jonson.
They say slow things have best perfection;
The gentle shower wets to fertility,
The churlish storm may mischief with his bounty;
The baser beasts take strength even from the womb,
But the lord lion's whelp is feeble long. Ford.
What time the sun at this sweet season,
The east with transient beauty stains,
Say, mortal, dost thou know the reason,
Why the bird of morn complains.
"Day's bright mirror," thus he sings,
"To me a mournful truth discloses,
A night of life has spread its wings
And fled, while man in sloth reposes."
Greenwood, from the Persian.
Serves for the matter that is born to it.
2. But small to greater matters must give way. 1.-Not if the small come first.
One world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
Coop'd up he seem'd, in earth and seas confin'd;
And struggling, stretch'd his restless limbs about
The narrow globe, to find a passage out.
Yet, enter'd in the brick-built town, he tried
The tomb, and found the straight dimensions wide.
Death only this inysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.
A MAN may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
-Smiles from reason flow, to brutes denied,— And are of love the food.
Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
That suddenly took birth, but overweighed
With its own swelling, dropped upon her bosom,
Which by reflection of the light appeared
As nature meant her grief for ornament.
After her looks grew cheerful, and I saw
A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes,
As if they gained a victory over care;
And with it many beams twisted themselves,
Upon whose golden thread the angels walk
To and from heaven.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled;
So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,
Then thou may'st smile, while all around thee weep.
Sir W. Jones.
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Masks hearts where grief has little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit, who wears them most.
As a beam o'er the face of the water may glow,
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be ting'd with a warm sunny smile,
Tho' the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.
T. Moore.
How beautiful the smile
On beauty's brow, in beauty's eye,
When not one token lingers nigh,
On lip, or eye, or cheek unbidden,
To tell of anguish vainly hidden!-J. G. Whittier.
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