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before the splendor of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves dishonored to be called your friend-who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand.

2. What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to that scaffold, which that tyranny, of which you are only the intermediary executioner, has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been, and will be shed, in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor? Shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the omnipotent Judge, to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here? by you too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry, in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it.

3. Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor! let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or, that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression, or the miseries, of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks forth our views; no inference can be tortured from it, to countenance barbarity, or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign invader, for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor; in the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who have lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, and am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent or repel it? No, God forbid!

4. If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism, which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind; and for which I am now to offer up my life. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek, is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled, through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous, that they cry to heaven.

5. Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom! I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world,it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write my epitaph for, as no man, who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them, and me, repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character: when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.

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XXIII. TELL ON HIS NATIVE HILLS.

Оn, with what pride I used

KNOWLES.

To walk these hills, and look up to my God,

And bless him that the land was free. 'T was free

From end to end, from cliff to lake 't was free!

Free as our torrents are that leap our rocks,

And plow our valleys, without asking leave!

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Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow
In very presence of the regal sun!

How happy was it then! I loved
Its very storms. Yes, I have sat

In my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake,
The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge
The wind came roaring. I have sat and eyed
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master save his own!

On yonder jutting cliff-o'ertaken there
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along,
And while gust followed gust more furiously,
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,

And I have thought of other lands, whose storms
Are summer-flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there-the thought that mine was free
Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head,
And cried in thraldom to that furious wind,

Blow on!-this is the land of liberty!

XXIV.-ONE YEAR AGO.

1. WHAT stars have faded from our sky!
What hopes unfolded but to die!
What dreams so fondly pondered o'er,
Forever lost the hues they wore ?
How like a death-knell, sad and slow,
Tolls through the soul, one year ago!

2. Where is the face we loved to greet,
The form that graced the fireside seat,
The gentle smile, the winning way,
That blessed our life-path day by day?
Where fled those accents soft and low
That thrilled our hearts "one year ago!"

3. Ah, vacant is the fireside chair,

The smile that won, no longer there;

From door and hall, from porch and lawn,

The echo of the voice is gone,

And we who linger, only know

How much we lost, one year ago!"

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SHAKSPEARE.

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee—

I have thee not; and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind? a false creation

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,

Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still;
And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing!—
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.

3.

Now o'er the one-half world,

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtained sleep: now witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered Murder,

-Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl his watch-thus with his stealthy pace,
Toward his design moves like a ghost.

4.

Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout;

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives-
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives;

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

XXVI.-THE INDIAN HUNTER.

ELIZA COOK.

1. On! why does the white man follow my path,
Like the hound on the tiger's track?
Does the flush on my dark cheek waken his wrath,—
Does he covet the bow at my back?

2. He has rivers and seas where the billows and breeze
Bear riches for him alone;

And the sons of the wood never plunge in the flood,
Which the white man calls his own.

3. Then why should he come to the streams where none
But the red man dares to swim?

Why, why should he wrong the hunter,—one
Who never did harm to him?

4. The Father above thought fit to give
The white man corn and wine;

There are golden fields where he may live,
But the forest shades are mine.

5. The Eagle hath its place of rest; The wild horse, where to dwell;

And the spirit that gave the bird its nest,

Made me a home as well.

6. Then back! go back from the red man's track
For the hunter's eyes grow dim,

To find that the white man wrongs the one
Who never did harm to him.

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