CHILDE HAROLD'S ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN. 411 ROL them and their confederates, and that he and his posterity shall be infamous! And the sentence imported something more; for, in the laws relating to capital cases, it is enacted, that "when the legal punishment of a man's crime cannot be inflicted, he may be put to death." And it was accounted meritorious to kill him! "Let not the infamous man," says the law, "be permitted to live;" implying that the citizen is free from guilt who executes this sentence! Such was the detestation in which bribery was held by our fathers! And hence was it that the Greeks were a terror to the barbarians-not the barbarians to the Greeks! Hence was it that wars were fair and open; that battles were fought, not with gold, but steel; and won, if won at all, not by treachery, but by force of arms ! CHILDE HAROLD'S ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN. BYRON. HERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods, a There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean-roll! 412 CHILDE HAROLD'S ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN. His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, His petty hope, in some near port or bay, Then dashest him again to earth;-there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Thy shores are empires, chang'd in all save thee— Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime; Of the Invisible; e'en from out thy slime GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT.-BROWNING. SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; 66 Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast. Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace, 'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near And from Mechlin church-steeple we heard the half-chime, At Aërschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray. And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and, cried Joris, "Stay spur! 413 We'll remember at Aix "-for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest; saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. So we were left galloping, Joris and I, Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; "Neath our feet broke the brittle, bright stubble like chaff; And "Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight!" "How they'll greet us!" and all in a moment his roan Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Called my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. And all I remember is, friends flocking round, As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground; As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, Which, the burgesses voted, by common consent, Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. O FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream, A fair young girl with light and delicate limbs, And wavy tresses gushing from the cap With which the Roman master crowned his slave, THE PRICE OF ELOQUENCE. When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched His bolts, and with his lightning smitten thee: They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven. And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, Have forged thy chain; yet while he deems thee bound. 415 THE PRICE OF ELOQUENCE.-CHAUNCEY COLTON. MORE ORE than twenty centuries ago, the orphan son of an Athenian sword-cutler, neglected by his guardians, and regarded as a youth of feeble promise, became, at the age of sixteen, enamored of eloquence. He resolved, with a strength of will and an ardor of enthusiasm to which nothing is insuperable, to be himself eloquent. This youth becomes successively the docile pupil of Callistratus, Isæus, Isocrates, and Plato. But his studies, though embracing a liberal and wide range of letters, philosophy, and science, are not confined to the academy or the public grovę. We see him daily ascending the Acropolis, and panting for breath as he gains the summit. Again he is seen laboriously climbing. Olympus, the Hymettus, and every eminence where genius or the muses have breathed their inspiration. His object, which he pursues with an ardor that never flags, and a diligence that never tires, is twofold, viz.: to drink in the free and fresh inspirations of nature and art, and, by unremitting daily exercise, to give expansion to his chest, and strength and freedom of play to his lungs. |