It can resent not; speak of royal crimes,
And it can frown not; schemeless lies the brain
Whose thoughts were sources of such fearful deeds.
What things are we, O Lord, when, at thy will,
A worm like this could shake the mighty world!
A few years since, and in the port was moored
A bark to far Columbia's forests bound;
And I was one of those indignant hearts
Panting for exile in the thirst for freedom.
Then, that pale clay (poor clay, that was a King!)
Forbade my parting, in the wanton pride
Of vain command, and with a fated sceptre
Waved back the shadow of the death to come.
Here stands that baffled and forbidden wanderer,
Loftiest amid the wrecks of ruined empire,
Beside the coffin of a headless King!
He thralled my fate, - I have prepared his doom;
He made me captive, lo! his narrow cell!
So hands unseen do fashion forth the earth
Of our frail schemes into our funeral urns;
So, walking dream-led in Life's sleep, our steps
Move blindfold to the scaffold or the Throne!

7. PROCREATIVE VIRTUE OF GREAT EXAMPLES. —Lord Byron.

WE will not strike for private wrongs alone:
Such are for selfish passions and rash men,
But are unworthy a tyrannicide.

We must forget all feelings save the one;

We must resign all passions save our purpose;
We must behold no object save our country,
And only look on death as beautiful,

So that the sacrifice ascend to Heaven,

And draw down freedom on her evermore.

"But if we fail -?" They never fail who die
In a great cause! The block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls;

But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,

They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world, at last, to freedom? What were we,
If Brutus had not lived? He died in giving.
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson, -
A name which is a virtue, and a soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a State

Turns servile. He and his high friends were styled
"The last of Romans!" Let us be the first

Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires;

8. MARINO FALIERO TO THE VENETIAN CONSPIRATORS. — Lord Byron.

You see me here,

As one of you hath said, an old, unarmed,

Defenceless man; and yesterday you saw me

Presiding in the hall of ducal state,

Apparent sovereign of our hundred isles,
Robed in official purple, dealing out
The edicts of a power which is not mine,

Nor yours, but of our masters, the Patricians.
Why I was there, you know, or think you know;
Why I am here, he who hath been most wronged,
He who among you hath been most insulted,
Outraged, and trodden on, until he doubt
If he be worm or no, may answer for me,

Asking of his own heart, what brought him here!
You know my recent story; all men know it,
And judge of it far differently from those
Who sate in judgment to heap scorn on scorn.
But spare me the recital, - it is here,

Here, at my heart, the outrage! - but my words,
Already spent in unavailing 'plaints,

Would only show my feebleness the more;
And I come here to strengthen even the strong,
And urge them on to deeds, and not to war
With woman's weapons; but I need not urge you.
Our private wrongs have sprung from public vices

In this I cannot call it commonwealth,

Nor kingdom, which hath neither prince nor People,
But all the sins of the old Spartan state,
Without its virtues, temperance, and valor.
The lords of Lacedemon were true soldiers;
But ours are Sybarites, while we are Helots,
Of whom I am the lowest, most enslaved,
Although dressed out to head a pageant, as
The Greeks of yore made drunk their slaves, to form
A pastime for their children. You are met
To overthrow this monster of a State,
This mockery of a Government, this spectre,
Which must be exorcised with blood, and then
We will renew the times of truth and justice,
Condensing, in a fair, free commonwealth,
Not rash equality, but equal rights,
Proportioned like the columns to the temple,

Giving and taking strength reciprocal,

And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without
Infringement on the general symmetry.
In operating this great change, I claim
To be one of you, if you trust in me;

If not, strike home; my life is compromised,
And I would rather fall by freemen's hands,
Than live another day to act the tyrant,

As delegate of tyrants.

And never have been.

Such I am not,

Read it in our annals.

I can appeal to my past government
In many lands and cities; they can tell you
If I were an oppressor, or a man
Feeling and thinking for my fellow-men.
Haply, had I been what the Senate sought,
A thing of robes and trinkets, dizened out
To sit in state as for a sovereign's picture,
A popular scourge, a ready sentence-signer,
A stickler for the Senate and "the Forty,"
A sceptic of all measures which had not
The sanction of " the Ten," - a council-fawner,
A tool, a fool, a puppet, they had ne'er
Fostered the wretch who stung me!
What I suffer
Has reached me through my pity for the People;
That many know, and they who know not yet
Will one day learn; meantime, I do devote,
Whate'er the issue, my last days of life,
My present power, such as it is; not that
Of Doge, but of a man who has been great
Before he was degraded to a Doge,

And still has individual means and mind;
I stake my fame (and I had fame),
- my breath
(The least of all, for its last hours are nigh),
My heart, my hope, my soul, upon this cast!
Such as I am, I offer me to you,

And to your chiefs. Accept me or reject me,
A prince who fain would be a citizen

Or nothing, and who has left his throne to be so!

9. DYING SPEECH OF MARINO FALIERO.

I SPEAK to Time and to Eternity,
Of which I grow a portion, not to man.
Ye elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit

Lord Byron.

Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner; Ye winds! which fluttered o'er as if you loved it,

And filled my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for; and thou foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things; and Thou,
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!

Attest!

I am not innocent, but, are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,

And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud city; and I leave my curse
On her and hers forever! - Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day

When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and busely yield,
Unto a bastard Attila, without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence
As these old veins, oft drained in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice. She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her! She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire; petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for Senates,
Beggars for Nobles, panders for a People!
Then, when the Hebrew 's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his,
When thy Patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity,

When all the ills of conquered States shall cling thee,
Vice without splendor, sin without relief, -
When these, and more, are heavy on thee,

when

Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure,
Youth without honor, age without respect,

Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe,

'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,

Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,

Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,

Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!

Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes!
Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom!

Thus I devote thee to the infernal Gods!

Thee, and thy serpent seed!

Slave, do thine office.

Strike, as I struck the foe!
Have struck these tyrants!
Strike, and but once!

Strike, as I would
Strike deep as my curse!

10. CATILINE TO HIS FRIENDS, AFTER FAILING IN HIS ELECTION TO IIIE CONSULSHIP.-Rev. George Croly.

ARE there not times, Patricians, when great States
Rush to their ruin? Rome is no more like Rome,
Than a foul dungeon 's like the glorious sky.
What is she now? Degenerate, gross, defiled;
The tainted haunt, the gorged receptacle,
Of every slave and vagabond of earth:
A mighty grave that Luxury has dug,
To rid the other realms of pestilence!
Ye wait to hail me Consul?
Consul! Look on me,

--

on this brow, these hands;
Look on this bosom, black with early wounds;
Have I not served the State from boyhood up,
Scattered my blood for her, labored for, loved her?
I had no chance; wherefore should I be Consul?
No. Cicero still is master of the crowd.

Why not? He's made for them, and they for him;
They want a sycophant, and he wants slaves.
Well, let him have them!

Patricians! They have pushed me to the gulf;
I have worn down my heart, wasted my means,
Humbled my birth, bartered my ancient name,
For the rank favor of the senseless mass,
That frets and festers in your Commonwealth,
And now

The very men with whom I walked through life,
Nay, till within this hour, in all the bonds
Of courtesy and high companionship,

This day, as if the Heavens had stamped me black,
Turned on their heel, just at the point of fate,
Left me a mockery in the rabble's midst,

And followed their Plebeian Consul, Cicero !

This was the day to which I looked through life,
And it has failed me-

Like air!

Roman no more!

vanished from my grasp,

The rabble of the streets

Have seen me humbled; slaves may gibe at me!

For all the ills

That chance or nature lays upon our heads,
In chance or nature there is found a cure!

But self-abasement is beyond all cure!