But pause before you stain the spotless paper,
With words that may inflame, but cannot heal!
Jul. Why, what a patient worm you take me for!
Duke. I took you for a wife; and ere I've done,
I'll know you for a good one.
Jul. You shall know me
For a right woman, full of her own sex;
Who, when she suffers wrong, will speak her anger:
Who feels her own prerogative, and scorns,
By the proud reason of superior man,
To be taught patience, when her swelling heart
Cries out revenge! [Exit.
Duke. Why, let the flood rage on!
There is no tide in woman's wildest passion
But hath an ebb. - I've broke the ice, however.
Write to her father! She may write a folio -
But if she send it!-'T will divert her spleen,
The flow of ink may save her blood-letting.
Perchance she may have fits! They are seldom mortal,
Save when the Doctor's sent for.-
Though I have heard some husbands say,
A woman's honor is her safest guard,
Yet there's some virtue in a lock and key.
So, thus begins our honeymoon. -'T is well!
For the first fortnight, ruder than March winds,
She'll blow a hurricane. The next, perhaps,
Like April she may wear a changeful face
Of storm and sunshine: and when that is past,
She will break glorious as unclouded May;
And where the thorns grew bare, the spreading blossoms
Meet with no lagging frost to kill their sweetness.
Whilst others, for a month's delirious joy
Buy a dull age of penance, we, more wisely,
Taste first the wholesome bitter of the cup,
That after to the very lees shall relish;
And to the close of this frail life prolong
The pure delights of a well-governed marriage.
When? How? and Why?
When did Johnnie die, birdie
When did Johnnie die?
The earth was aglow with blossoms,
And violets bloomed in the sky.
The scented air was aquiver
With music of countless birds;
And the beautiful, sunlit river
Seemed murmuring loving words.
Fair lambs, like breathing lilies,
Dotted the green hillside;
And earth was filled with beauty,
When little Johnnie died.
How did Johnnie die, birdie?
How did Johnnie die?
His dear, blue eyes, that widened
From long gazing on the sky,
And filled with Heaven's glory,
All suddenly grew dim.
Ah! well we knew the angels
Were looking down on him!
Without one glance at us mortals,
Who knelt in grief by his side,
But with hands outstretched to those angels,
Our little Johnnie died.
Why died our little Johnnie?
Does birdie ask me why?
To show how much of sorrow
One may bear, and yet not die.
To lift our faint hearts upward
To the Gracious One on High,
Who blessed the little children
When He dwelt beneath the sky;
To make us drop all earth props
For the hand of the Crucified,
Ah! not in vain, dear birdie,
Our little Johnnie died!
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothock
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung.
When the rock was hid by the surge's swell
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothock.
The sun in heaven was shining gay;
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring;
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothock."
The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float.
Down sunk the bell with a gurgling sound;
The bubbles rose and burst around;
Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the rock,
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothock."
Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;
He scoured the seas for many a day;
And now, grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.
So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high; ·
The wind hath blown a gale all day;
At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand;
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon."
"Canst hear," said one, "the breaker's roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore."
"Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell."
They hear no sound; the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock, –
"Oh God! it is the Inchcape Rock!"
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair;
He cursed himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,
A sound, as if, with the Inchcape Bell,
The fiend below was ringing his knell.
A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX.
Lars Porsena of Clusium
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.
East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan
Who lingers in his home
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome.
But by the yellow Tiber
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign
To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city,
The throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through two long nights and days.
Now from the rock Tarpeian,
Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages
Red in the midnight sky.
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