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And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar, And near, the beat of the alarming drum,

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! they come ! they come !"

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard — and heard, too, have her Saxon foes :—
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers

With the fierce native daring, which instils

The stirring memory of a thousand years:

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,-
Over the unreturning brave, - alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow,
In its next verdure; when this fiery mass

Of living valor, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low !

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay;

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife;
The morn, the marshalling in arms; the day,
Battle's magnificently-stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent,
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover,

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Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent!

Lord Byron.

CCXXXVIII.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

HE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

THE

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Lord Byron

MY

CCXXXIX.

SPEECH OF MOLOCH.

Y sentence is for open war. Of wiles,
More unexpert,

I boast not; them let those

Contrive who need, or when they need, not now ;
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here,
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
Accept this dark, opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny, who reigns

By our delay? No; let us rather choose,
Armed with hell-flames and fury, all at once,
O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer; when, to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine, he shall hear
Infernal thunder, and for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels, — and his throne itself,
Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments.

But, perhaps,

The way seems difficult and steep to scale,
With upright wing, against a higher foe.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight,
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy then;
The event is feared.

Should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction; if there be in hell,

Fear to be worse destroyed. What can be worse
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end,

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus
We should be quite abolished and expire.

What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which to the height enraged,

Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential (happier far,
Than miserable, to have eternal being,)
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne;
Which, if not victory,

is yet REVENGE.

Milton.

FRI

CCXL

ANTONY'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS.

RIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interréd with their bones :
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.

Was this ambition ?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And, sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause witholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason! — Bear with me:
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

O Masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.

I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men:

But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar, -
I found it in his closet; 't is his will.

Let but the commons hear this testament

(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),

And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds, And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy,

Unto their issue.

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