Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot Thrust foully in the earth to be forgot.

O Heavens ! - but I appall

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. - Now o'er the one half

world

lives

FROM "MACBETH," ACT II. SC. 1.

[MACBETH before the murder of Duncan, meditating alone, sees the image of a dagger in the air, and thus soliloquizes :)

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy

It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good night. He is

about it:

clutch thee:

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

Whether they live or die.

MACBETH (within). Who's there? What, ho!

deed Confounds us. ready;

more!"

Macbeth shall sleep no

LADY M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,

- Hark! I laid their daggers

He could not miss them. Had he not resembled My father, as he slept, I had done 't. My husband!

You do unbend your noble strength, to think So brainsickly of things. — Go, get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your hand.

MACB. (looking on his hands). This is a sorry sight.

LADY M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

Are but as pictures: 't is the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal;
For it must seem their guilt.

MACB.

mine eyes!

a knocking

At the south entry: - retire we to our chamber:
A little water clears us of this deed:
How easy is it, then! Your constancy
Hath left you unattended. (Knocking.) Hark,
more knocking.

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers: be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.

MACB. To know my deed, 't were best not know myself. (Knocking.) Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst.

SHAKESPEARE.

RIDING TOGETHER.

FOR many, many days together

The wind blew steady from the east ; For many days hot grew the weather, About the time of our Lady's feast.

For many days we rode together,

Yet met we neither friend nor foe; Hotter and clearer grew the weather, Steadily did the east-wind blow.

We saw the trees in the hot, bright weather,
Clear-cut, with shadows very black,
As freely we rode on together

With helms unlaced and bridles slack.

And often as we rode together,

We, looking down the green-banked stream, Saw flowers in the sunny weather,

And saw the bubble-making bream.

And in the night lay down together,
And hung above our heads the rood,
Or watched night-long in the dewy weather,
The while the moon did watch the wood.

Our spears stood bright and thick together, Straight out the banners streamed behind, As we galloped on in the sunny weather,

With faces turned towards the wind.

Down sank our threescore spears together,
As thick we saw the pagans ride;
His eager face in the clear fresh weather
Shone out that last time by my side.

Up the sweep of the bridge we dashed together,
It rocked to the crash of the meeting spears,
Down rained the buds of the dear spring weather,

The elm-tree flowers fell like tears.

There, as we rolled and writhed together,
I threw my arms above my head,

For close by my side, in the lovely weather,
I saw him reel and fall back dead.

I and the slayer met together,

He waited the death-stroke there in his place, With thoughts of death, in the lovely weather Gapingly mazed at my maddened face.

Madly I fought as we fought together;
In vain the little Christian band
The pagans drowned, as in stormy weather,
The river drowns low-lying land.

They bound my blood-stained hands together,
They bound his corpse to nod by my side:
Then on we rode, in the bright March weather,
With clash of cymbals did we ride.

We ride no more, no more together;
My prison-bars are thick and strong,

I take no heed of any weather,
The sweet Saints grant I live not long.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

THE ROSE AND THE GAUNTLET.

Low spake the knight to the peasant maid,
"O, be not thus of my suit afraid !
Fly with me from this garden small,
And thou shalt sit in my castle hall.

"Thou shalt have pomp and wealth and pleasure,
Joys beyond thy fancy's measure;
Here with my sword and horse I stand,
To bear thee away to my distant land.

"Take, thou fairest! this full-blown rose
A token of love that as ripely blows."
With his glove of steel he plucked the token,
And it fell from the gauntlet crushed and broken.

The maiden exclaimed, "Thou seest, Sir Knight, Thy fingers of iron can only smite;

And, like the rose thou hast torn and scattered, I in thy grasp should be wrecked and shattered!"

She trembled and blushed, and her glances fell, But she turned from the knight, and said, "Farewell."

"Not so," he cried, "will I lose my prize;
I heed not thy words, but I read thine eyes."

He lifted her up in his grasp of steel,
And he mounted and spurred with fiery heel;
But her cry drew forth her hoary sire,
Who snatched his bow from above the fire.

Swift from the valley the warrior fled,
But swifter the bolt of the cross-bow sped;
And the weight that pressed on the fleet-foot
horse

Was the living man and the woman's corse.

That morning the rose was bright of hue,
That morning the maiden was sweet to view;
But the evening sun its beauty shed
On the withered leaves and the maiden dead.
JOHN WILSON (Christopher North)

THE KING IS COLD.

RAKE the embers, blow the coals,

Kindle at once a roaring fire; Here's some paper - 't is nothing, sir – Light it (they've saved a thousand souls), Run for fagots, ye scurvy knaves,

There are plenty out in the public square, You know they fry the heretics there. (But God remember their nameless graves!) Fly, fly, or the king may die'

With sheets of satin and pillows of down,
And close beside it stands the crown,
But that won't keep him from dying there!
His hands are wrinkled, his hair is gray,

And his ancient blood is sluggish and thin;
When he was young it was hot with sin, -
But that is over this many a day!
Under these sheets of satin and lace

He slept in the arms of his concubines;
Now they carouse with the prince instead,
Drinking the maddest, merriest wines;
It's pleasant to hear such catches trolled,
Now the king is cold!

What shall I do with His Majesty now?
For, thanks to my potion, the man is dead;
Suppose I bolster him up in bed,
And fix the crown again on his brow?
That would be merry! but then the prince
Would tumble it down, I know, in a trice;
"T would puzzle the Devil to name a vice
That would make his Excellent Highness wince!
Hark! he's coming, I know his step;
He's stealing to see if his wishes are true;
Sire, may your father's end be yours!

(With just such a son to murder you!) Peace to the dead! Let the bells be tolled The king is cold!

ROBERT BROWNING.

FRA GIACOMO.

ALAS, Fra Giacomo,

--

so!

Too late! but follow me ;
Hush! draw the curtain,
She is dead, quite dead, you see.
Poor little lady! she lies

With the light gone out of her eyes,
But her features still wear that soft
Gray meditative expression,
Which you must have noticed oft,

And admired too, at confession.
How saintly she looks, and how meek!
Though this be the chamber of death,
I fancy I feel her breath

As I kiss her on the cheek.
With that pensive religious face,
She has gone to a holier place!
And I hardly appreciated her,
Her praying, fasting, confessing,

Poorly, I own, I mated her;

Heigh-ho! T is now six summers

Since I won that angel and married her :
I was rich, not old, and carried her
Off in the face of all comers.
So fresh, yet so brimming with soul !
A tenderer morsel, i swear,
Never made the dull black coal

Of a monk's eye glitter and glare.
Your pardon ! nay, keep your chair!

I wander a little, but mean

No offence to the gray gaberdine;
Of the church, Fra Giacomo,
I'm a faithful upholder, you know,
But (humor me !) she was as sweet
As the saints in your convent windows,
So gentle, so meek, so discreet,

She knew not what lust does or sin does.
I'll confess, though, before we were one,
I deemed her less saintly, and thought
The blood in her veins had caught
Some natural warmth from the sun.
I was wrong, I was blind as a bat,

Brute that I was, how I blundered!
Though such a mistake as that
Might have occurred as pat

To ninety-nine men in a hundred.
Yourself, for example? you 've seen her?
Spite her modest and pious demeanor,
And the manners so nice and precise,
Seemed there not color and light,
Bright motion and appetite,
That were scarcely consistent with ice?
Externals implying, you see,

Internals less saintly than human? Pray speak, for between you and me

You're not a bad judge of a woman !

A jest,

- but a jest!

Very true:
'Tis hardly becoming to jest,
And that saint up stairs at rest,
Her soul may be listening, too!
I was always a brute of a fellow !
Well may your visage turn yellow,
To think how I doubted and doubted,
Suspected, grumbled at, flouted
That golden-haired angel, - and solely
Because she was zealous and holy!
Noon and night and morn

She devoted herself to piety;
Not that she seemed to scorn

Or dislike her husband's society;
But the claims of her soul superseded
All that I asked for or needed,
And her thoughts were far away
From the level of sinful clay,
And she trembled if earthly matters
Interfered with her aves and paters.
Poor dove, she so fluttered in flying

Above the dim vapors of hell-
Bent on self-sanctifying -
That she never thought of trying
To save her husband as well.
And while she was duly elected
For place in the heavenly roll,
I (brute that I was !) suspected

Her manner of saving her soul.
So, half for the fun of the thing,
What did I (blasphemer !) but fling
On my shoulders the gown of a monk
Whom I managed for that very day
To get safely out of the way
And seat me, half sober, half drunk,
With the cowl thrown over my face,
In the father confessor's place.
Eheu benedicite !

In her orthodox sweet simplicity,
With that pensive gray expression,
She sighfully knelt at confession,
While I bit my lips till they bled,
And dug my nails in my hand,
And heard with averted head

What I'd guessed and could understand. Each word was a serpent's sting,

But, wrapt in my gloomy gown,

I sat, like a marble thing,

As she told me all!- SIT DOWN.

COUNTESS LAURA.

It was a dreary day in Padua.
The Countess Laura, for a single year
Fernando's wife, upon her bridal bed,
Like an uprooted lily on the snow,
The withered outcast of a festival,
Lay dead.

She died of some uncertain ill,
That struck her almost on her wedding day,
And clung to her, and dragged her slowly down,
Thinning her cheeks and pinching her full lips,
Till, in her chance, it seemed that with a year
Full half a century was overpast.
In vain had Paracelsus taxed his art,
And feigned a knowledge of her malady;
In vain had all the doctors, far and near,
Gathered around the mystery of her bed,
Draining her veins, her husband's treasury,
And physic's jargon, in a fruitless quest
For causes equal to the dread result.

The Countess only smiled when they were gone, Hugged her fair body with her little hands,

And turned upon her pillows wearily,

As though she fain would sleep no common sleep,
But the long, breathless slumber of the grave.
She hinted nothing. Feeble as she was,
The rack could not have wrung her secret out.
The Bishop, when he shrived her, coming forth.