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every thing, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle, at the slightest circumstance, into a blaze of discovery.

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7. Meantime, the guilty soul can not keep its own secret. It is false to itself, or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it does not acknowledge to God nor man. vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy nor assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses, soon comes to possess him; and like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.

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WEBSTER.

LESSON CXXI.

THE DREAM OF CLARENCE.

CLARENCE, prisoner in the Tower of London.
Enter BRAKENBURY.

Brakenbury. WHY looks your grace so heavily today?
Clarence. O, I have passed a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,

That, as I am a christian, faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night,

Though 't were to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me.
Clar. Methought that I had broken from the Tower,

And was embarked, to cross to Burgundy;

And, in my company, my brother Gloster;

Who, from my cabin, tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; whence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befallen us. As we paced along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O then, methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 't were in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
Brak. Had you such leisure, in the time of death,
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
Clar. O no; my dream was lengthened, after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,

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With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first, that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cried aloud, "What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow, like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shrieked out aloud:
"Clarence is come! false, fleeting, perjured Clarence!
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury:
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!”
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
+Environed me, and howled in mine ears.
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I, trembling, waked, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
Brak. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

Clar. O, Brakenbury, I have done these things,
That now give evidence against my soul,

For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!
O God! if my deep prayers can not appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

Brak. I will, my lord: God give your grace good rest!

[CLARENCE reposes himself on a chair.

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,

Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.

SHAKSPEARE.

LESSON CXXII.

AMBITION.

1. WHAT is ambition? 'Tis a glorious cheat.
It seeks the chamber of the gifted boy,
And lifts his humble window and comes in.
The narrow walls expand, and spread away
Into a kingly palace, and the roof
Lifts to the sky, and unseen fingers work
The ceiling with rich + blazonry, and write
His name in burning letters over all.
And ever as he shuts his wildered eyes,
The phantom comes, and lays upon his lips
A spell that murders sleep, and in his ear
Whispers a deathless word, and on his brain
Breathes a fierce thirst no waters will allay.
2. He is its slave henceforth. His days are spent
In chaining down his heart, and watching where
To rise by human weaknesses. His nights
Bring him no rest in all their blessed hours;
His kindred are forgotten or estranged;
Unhealthful fires burn constant in his eye;
His lip grows restless, and its smile is curled
Half into scorn; till the bright, fiery boy,
That 't was a daily blessing but to see,
His spirit was so bird-like and so pure,
Is frozen in the very flush of youth,
Into a cold, care-fretted, heartless man.

3. And what is its reward? At best, a name!

Praise-when the ear has grown too dull to hear;
Gold-when the senses it should please are dead:
Wreaths-when the hair they cover has grown gray;

Fame

when the heart it should have thrilled is numb.
All things but love when love is all we want,
And close behind comes death, and ere we know,
That even these unavailing gifts are ours,
He sends us, stripped and naked, to the grave.

WILLIS.

LESSON CXXIII.

ADAM'S MORNING HYMN.

1. THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of Good!
Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair! thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens,
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these, thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divins.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne, rejoicing; ye in heaven,
On earth, join, all ye creatures, to extol
Him first, him last, him 'midst, and without end.

2. Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou Sun! of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him, thy greater, sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fall'st.
3. Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st
With the fixed stars, fixed in their orb that flies,
And ye, five other wandering fires, that move
In fmystic dance, not without song resound
His praise, who, out of darkness, called up light.
Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth

Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix

And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.

4. Ye mists and texhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake! dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honor to the world's great Author, rise!
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.

His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,

Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship, wave.

5. Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling, tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds,
That singing up to Heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, and lowly creep,
Witness, if I be silent, morn or even,

To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade
Made vocal by my song and taught his praise.
6. Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil, or concealed,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

MILTON.

LESSON CXXIV.

THE FIRST OF APRIL.

1. MINDFUL of disaster past,

And shrinking at the northern blast,
Reluctant comes the timid Spring.
Scarce a bee, with airy wing,
Murmurs the blossomed boughs around,

That clothe the garden's southern bound:

Scarce a sickly, straggling flower,

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Decks the rough castle's rifted tower:
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps,
From the dark dell's tangled steeps.

2. Scant along the ridgy land,

The beans, their new-born ranks expand:
The fresh turned soil, with tender blades,
Thinly the sprouting barley shades:
Fringing the forest's devious edge,
Half robed appears the hawthorn hedge,
Or to the distant eye displays,
Weakly green, its budding sprays.

3. The swallow, for a moment seen,
Skims with haste the village green:
From the gray moor, on feeble wing,
The screaming plover idly spring:
The butterfly, gay painted, soon
Explores awhile the tepid noon,
And fondly trusts its tender dyes,
To fickle suns and flattering skies.

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