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By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods:
Since nought so stockish hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils :
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

LXXXVIII.-THE ISLES OF GREECE.

1. THE isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung:
Where grew the arts of war and peace:
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet;
But all, except their sun, is set.

2. The mountains look on Marathon-
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

3. 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here ?

For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.

4. Must we but weep o'er days more blessed?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled-
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla.

5. What! silent still? and silent all?

Ah! no;-the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, "Let one living head,

And answer,

BYRON.

But one arise,-we come, we come ""
'Tis but the living who are dumb.

6. In vain-in vain: strike other chords:
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine !-
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,

How answers each bold bacchanal !

7. The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend:

That tyrant was Miltiades!

O that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

8. Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells.
In native swords and native ranks
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.

9. Place me on Sunium's marble steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die :
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

LXXXIX.-WHAT IS TIME?

1. I ASKED an aged man, a man of cares,

Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs:
"Time is the warp of life," he said, "oh tell
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well."

2. I asked the ancient, venerable dead,
Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled:
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed,
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode !"

3. I asked the dying sinner, ere the tide

Of life had left his veins: "Time!" he replied: "I've lost it! Ah, the treasure!" and he died.

MARSDEN.

4. I asked a spirit lost; but oh, the shriek

That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak!
It cried, "A particle! a speck! a mite

Of endless years, duration infinite!"

5. I asked my Bible; and, methinks, it said,
"Time is the present hour: the past is fled :
Live! live to-day! to-morrow never yet
On any human being rose or set."

6. I asked old Father Time himself, at last ;

But in a moment, he flew swiftly past,

His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.

7. I asked the mighty Angel who shall stand
One foot on sea, and one on solid land:

"I now declare, the mystery is o'er :

Time was," he cried, "but Time shall be no more!"

XC.-DEATH AND THE DRUNKARD.

1. His form was fair, his cheek was health:
His word a bond, his purse was wealth;
With wheat his field was covered o'er,
Plenty sat smiling at his door.

His wife, the fount of ceaseless joy:

Now laughed his daughter, played his boy:

His library, though large, was read

Till half its contents decked his head.

At morn, 'twas health, wealth, pure delight,
'Twas health, wealth, peace, and bliss at night.
I wished not to disturb his bliss:

'Tis gone! but all the fault is his.

2. The social glass I saw him seize,
The more with festive wit to please,
Daily increase his love of cheer:
Ah, little thought he I was near!
Gradual indulgence on him stole,
Frequent became the midnight bowl.
I, in that bowl, the headache placed,
Which, with the juice, his lips embraced.
Shame next I mingled with the draught:
Indignantly he drank, and laughed.

3. In the bowl's bottom, bankruptcy

:

I placed he drank with tears and glee.
Remorse did I into it pour:

He only sought the bowl the more.
I mingled, next, joint torturing pain:
Little the more did he refrain.

The dropsy in the cup I mixed;
Still to his mouth the cup was fixed.
My emissaries thus in vain

I sent, the mad wretch to restrain.

4. On the bowl's bottom, then, myself
I threw the most abhorrent elf
Of all that mortals hate or dread ;
And thus in horrid whispers said,
"Successless ministers I've sent,
Thy hastening ruin to prevent:
Their lessons naught: then here am I:
Think not my threatenings to defy.
Swallow this, this thy last will be,
For with it, thou must swallow me."

5. Haggard his eyes, upright his hair,
Remorse his lips, his cheeks despair:
With shaking hands the bowl he clasp'd,
My meatless limbs his carcass grasp'd
And bore it to the church-yard, where
Thousands, ere I would call, repair.

6. Death speaks: ah, reader, dost thou hear?
Hast thou no lurking cause to fear?
Has not o'er thee the sparkling bowl,
Constant, commanding, sly control?
Betimes reflect, betimes beware,
Though ruddy, healthful now, and fair:
Before slow reason lose the sway,

Reform postpone another day,

You soon may mix with common clay.

XCI.-HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

1. To be or not to be-that is the question! Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

SHAKSPEARE.

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The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them: To die-to sleep-

No more!-and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to-'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished.

2. To die-to sleep:

To sleep?-perchance to dream-aye, there's the rub!
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause! There's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes-
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

3. Who would fardels bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death-
That undiscovered country, from whose bourne

No traveller returns-puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of!

4. Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all :
And thus, the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

XCII. THE MANIAC.

1. STAY, jailer, stay, and hear my woe!
She is not mad that kneels to thee;
For what I'm now, too well I know,
And what I was, and what should be.

LEWIS.

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