SOLILOQUY AND MEDITATION.

SOLILOQUY OF MANFRED

THE spirits I have raised abandon me
The spells which I have studied baffle me
The remedy I recked of tortured me:
I lean no more on superhuman aid ;
It hath no power upon the past, and for
The future, till the past be gulfed in darkness,
It is not of my search. My mother earth!

And thou, fresh-breaking day; and you, ye mountains,
Why are ye beautiful ? I cannot love ye.
And thou, the bright eye of the universe,
That open'st over all, and unto all

Art a delight thou shin'st not on my heart.
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath
Behold the tall pines dwindle as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance; when a leap,
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed
To rest forever wherefore do I pause?
I feel the impulse -- yet I do not plunge;
I see the peril yet do not recede;

And my brain reels- and yet my foot is firm:
There is a power upon me which withholds,
And makes it my fatality to live,

If it be life to wear within myself

This barrenness of spirit, and to be

My own soul's sepulcher; for I have ceased

To justify my deeds unto myself —

The last infirmity of evil.-Ay,

Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, (An eagle passes.)

Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,

Well may'st thou swoop so near me— I should be

Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone

Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine

Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,
With a pervading vision. - Beautiful!
How beautiful is all this visible world!

How glorious in its action and itself!

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will
Till our mortality predominates,

And men are - what they name not to themselves,
And trust not to each other.

BYRON.

KING RICHARD'S MEDITATION ON KINGS.

No matter where; of comfort no more speak;
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors, and talk of wills:

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposéd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own, but death;
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings

How some have been deposed, some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed;
All murdered: For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court: and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humored thus,

Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence; throw away respect,

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends: subjected thus,

WHAT must the king do now?

The king shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels, for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace, for a hermitage;
My gay apparel, for an alms-man's gown;
My figured goblets, for a dish of wood;
My scepter, for a palmer's walking staff;
My subjects, for a pair of carved saints;
And my large kingdom, for a little grave,
A little, little grave, an obscure grave:·
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
May hourly,trample on their sovereign's head:
For on my heart they tread, now whilst I live;
And, buried once, why not upon my head?

Aumerle, thou weep'st; my tender-hearted cousin!----
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.

Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus: to drop them still upon one place
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
Within the earth; and, therein laid

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There lie

Two kinsmen, digged their graves with weeping eyes?"
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see

I talk but idly, and you mock at me..
Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke! will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?

You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says-ay. SHAKSPEARE.

ROMEO IN THE GARDEN.

BUT, soft! what light through yonder window breaks!

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid, since she is envious:

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady: O, it is my love:

O that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold; 't is not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

She speaks:-
O speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturned, wondering eyes.
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

SHAKSPEARE.

CLIFFORD'S SOLILOQUY

SHAME and confusion! all is on the rout;
Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
Where it should guard. O War, thou son of hell,

Whom angry heavens do make their minister,