LADY M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry How is 't with me, when every noise appalls me ? sight. What hands are here! Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
MACB. There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried, "Murder!”
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood That they did wake each other: I stood and Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will heard them : rather
But they did say their prayers, and addressed The multitudinous seas inearnadine,
them Again to sleep. LADY M. There are two lodged together. MACB. One cried, "God bless us !" and, 'Amen," the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's
hands,
Listening their fear. I could not say, "Amen,"
When they did say, "God bless us.
LADY M.
Consider it not so deeply.
MACB. But wherefore could not I pronounce
"Amen"?
I had most need of blessing, and "Amen"
Stuck in my throat.
LADY M. These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
MACB. Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep
Macbeth does murder sleep," - the innocent
sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,
LADY M.
What do you mean?
MACB. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to
all the house :
Making the green -- one red.
Re-enter LADY MACBETH,
LADY M. My hands are of your color; but I shame
To wear a heart so white. (Knocking.) I hear
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,
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
LUCIUS JUNIUS BRUTUS OVER THE BODY
OF LUCRETIA.
FROM "BRUTUS."
WOULD you know why I summoned you to-
gether?
ye what brings me here? Behold this dagger, "Glamis hath murdered sleep; and therefore Clotted with gore! Behold that frozen corse!
See where the lost Lucretia sleeps in death!
Macbeth shall sleep no She was the mark and model of the time,
The mold in which each female face was formed,
LADY M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, The very shrine and sacristy of virtue !
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
Fairer than ever was a form created
By youthful fancy when the blood strays wild, And never-resting thought is all on fire! The worthiest of the worthy! Not the nymph Who met old Numa in his hallowed walks, And whispered in his ear her strains divine, Can I conceive beyond her ;- the young choir. I'll go no more! Of vestal virgins bent to her. 'T is wonderful I am afraid to think what I have done; Amid the darnel, hemlock, and base weeds, Look on 't again, I dare not. Which now spring rife from the luxurious comLADY M. post Spread o'er the realm, how this sweet lily rose, How from the shade of those ill-neighboring plants
Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: the sleeping, and the dead,
Are but as pictures: 't is the eye of childhood
Her father sheltered her, that not a leaf
Was blighted, but, arrayed in purest grace,
She bloomed unsullied beauty. Such perfections
Might have called back the torpid breast of age
To long-forgotten rapture; such a mind
Might have abashed the boldest libertine
And turned desire to reverential love
And holiest affection! O my countrymen !
You all can witness when that she went forth
It was a holiday in Rome; old age
Forgot its crutch, labor its task,
- all ran,
And mothers, turning to their daughters, cried,
There, there's Lucretia!" Now look ye where
she lies!
That beauteous flower, that innocent sweet rose,
Torn up by ruthless violence,-gone! gone! gone!
Say, would you seek instruction? would ye ask
What ye should do? Ask ye yon conscious walls,
Which saw his poisoned brother,
It will be granted. We may all then live
To make these woes a tale for distant years.
O, what a thought! It gushes to my heart
Like the warm blood.
BEATR.
Yet both will soon be cold.
O, trample out that thought! Worse than despair,
Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope;
It is the only ill which can find place
Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour
Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost
That it should spare the eldest flower of spring;
Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose
couch
Even now a city stands, fair, strong, and free;
Now stench and blackness yawns, like death.
| With famine, or wind-walking pestilence,
Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man!
Cruel, cold, formal man! righteous in words,
In deeds a Cain. No, mother, we must die,
Since such is the reward of innocent lives,
Such the alleviation of worst wrongs.
And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold
Ask yon deserted street, where Tullia drove
O'er her dead father's corse, 't will cry, Revenge!
Ask yonder senate-house, whose stones are purple
With human blood, and it will cry, Revenge!
Go to the tomb where lies his murdered wife,
And the poor queen, who loved him as her son,
Their unappeased ghosts will shriek, Revenge!
The temples of the gods, the all-viewing heavens,
The gods themselves, shall justify the cry,
And swell the general sound, Revenge! Revenge!
And we will be revenged, my countrymen!
Brutus shall lead you on; Brutus, a name
Which will, when you 're revenged, be dearer to Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure
Than all the noblest titles earth can boast.
Brutus your king! No, fellow-citizens !
If mad ambition in this guilty frame
Had strung one kingly fiber, yea, but one,
By all the gods, this dagger which I hold
Should rip it out, though it intwined my heart.
Now take the body up. Bear it before us
To Tarquin's palace; there we 'll light our torches,
And in the blazing conflagration rear
A pile, for these chaste relics, that shall send
Her soul amongst the stars. On! Brutus leads
you!
My God can it be possible I have
To die so suddenly? So young to go
Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground!
To be nailed down into a narrow place;
To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more
Smiling and slow, walk through a world of tears
To death as to life's sleep, 't were just the grave
And wind me in thine all-embracing arms!
Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom,
And rock me to the sleep from which none wake.
THE YOUNG GRAY HEAD.
GRIEF hath been known to turn the young head gray,
To silver over in a single day
The bright locks of the beautiful, their prime
Scarcely o'erpast; as in the fearful time
Of Gallia's madness, that discrowned head
Serene, that on the accursed altar bled
Miscalled of Liberty. O martyred Queen!
What must the sufferings of that night have
been
That one
that sprinkled thy fair tresses o'er
With time's untimely snow! But now no more,
Lovely, august, unhappy one! of thee -
I have to tell a humbler history;
A village tale, whose only charm, in sooth
(If any), will be sad and simple truth.
'Mother," quoth Ambrose to his thrifty dame, -
So oft our peasant's use his wife to name,
"Father" and "Master" to himself applied,
As life's grave duties matronize the bride, -
'Mother," quoth Ambrose, as he faced the north
With hard-set teeth, before he issued forth
To his day labor, from the cottage door, -
"I'm thinking that, to-night, if not before,
There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton*
roar?
It's brewing up down westward; and look there,
One of those sea-gulls! ay, there goes a pair;
And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on,
As threats, the waters will be out anon.
That path by the ford 's a nasty bit of way,
Best let the young ones bide from school to-day."
"Do, mother, do!" the quick-eared urchins More beautiful. The younger little one,
Two little lasses to the father's side
With large blue eyes and silken ringlets fair,
By nut-brown Lizzy, with smooth parted hair,
Sable and glossy as the raven's wing,
And lustrous eyes as dark.
Close clinging, as they looked from him, to spy
The answering language of the mother's eye.
There was denial, and she shook her head:
Nay, nay,
-no harm will come to them," she
said,
"The mistress lets them off these short dark days
An hour the earlier; and our Liz, she says,
May quite be trusted — and I know 't is true-Your little sister's hand, till you 're quite past,
To take care of herself and Jenny too.
"Now, mind and bring Jenny safe home," the mother said, - -"don't stay
To pull a bough or berry by the way:
And when you come to cross the ford, hold fast
That plank 's so crazy, and so slippery
And so she ought, she 's seven come first of (If not o'erflowed) the stepping-stones will be.
Two years the oldest; and they give away
The Christmas bounty at the school to-day."
The mother's will was law (alas, for her
That hapless day, poor soul !)- she could not err,
Thought Ambrose; and his little fair-haired Jane
(Her namesake) to his heart he hugged again,
When each had had her turn; she clinging so
As if that day she could not let him go.
But Labor's sons must snatch a hasty bliss
In nature's tenderest mood. One last fond kiss,
"God bless my little maids!" the father said,
And cheerly went his way to win their bread.
Then might be seen, the playmate parent gone,
What looks demure the sister pair put on,
Not of the mother as afraid, or shy,
Or questioning the love that could deny ;
But simply, as their simple training taught,
In quiet, plain straightforwardness of thought
(Submissively resigned the hope of play)
Towards the serious business of the day.
To me there's something touching, I confess,
In the grave look of early thoughtfulness,
Seen often in some little childish face
A fresh-water spring rushing into the sea, called Chewton Bunny.
But you 're good children - steady as old folk-
I'd trust ye anywhere." Then Lizzy's cloak,
A good gray duffle, lovingly she tied,
And amply little Jenny's lack supplied
With her own warmest shawl. "Be sure," said
she,
"To wrap it round and knot it carefully
(Like this), when you come home, just leaving
free
One hand to hold by. Now, make haste away -
Good will to school, and then good right to play."
At home with her own thoughts, but took her | And when the winter day closed in so fast;
Scarce for his task would dreary daylight last;
And in all weathers - driving leet and snow
Home by that bare, bleak moor-track must he go,
Darkling and lonely. O, the blessed sight
(His polestar) of that little twinkling light
From one small window, through the leafless trees,
Glimmering so fitfully; no eye but his
Had spied it so far off. And sure was he,
Entering the lane, a steadier beam to see,
Ruddy and broad as peat-fed hearth could pour,
Streaming to meet him from the open door.
Then, though the blackbird's welcome was un-
heard,
Silenced by winter, note of summer bird Still hailed him from no mortal fowl alive, But from the cuckoo clock just striking five. And Tinker's ear and Tinker's nose were keen,
And they'll come home, drowned rats. I must Off started he, and then a form was seen
His day's work done, three mortal miles, and more,
Lay between Ambrose and his cottage-door.
A weary way, God wot, for weary wight!
But yet far off the curling smoke in sight
From his own chimney, and his heart felt light.
How pleasantly the humble homestead stood,
Down the green lane, by sheltering Shirley wood!
How sweet the wafting of the evening breeze,
In spring-time, from his two old cherry-trees,
Sheeted with blossom! And in hot July,
From the brown moor-track, shadowless and dry,
How grateful the cool covert to regain
Of his own avenue, that shady lane,
With the white cottage, in a slanting glow
Of sunset glory, gleaming bright below,
And jasmine porch, his rustic portico !
With what a thankful gladness in his face,
(Silent heart-homage, - plant of special grace!)
At the lane's entrance, slackening oft his pace,
Would Ambrose send a loving look before;
Conceiting the caged blackbird at the door,
The very black bird, strained its little throat,
In welcome, with a more rejoicing note;
And honest Tinker, dog of doubtful breed,
All bristle, back, and tail, but "good at need,"
Pleasant his greeting to the accustomed ear;
But of all welcomes pleasantest, most dear,
The ringing voices, like sweet silver bells,
Of his two little ones. How fondly swells
The father's heart, as, dancing up the lane,
Each clasps a hand in her small hand again,
And each must tell her tale and "say her say,"
Impeding as she leads with sweet delay
(Childhood's blest thoughtlessness!) his onward
way.
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Such was the hour-hour sacred and apart —
Warmed in expectancy the poor man's heart.
Summer and winter, as his toil he plied,
To him and his the literal doom applied,
Pronounced on Adam. But the bread was sweet
So earned, for such dear mouths. The weary feet,
Hope-shod, stept lightly on the homeward way;
So specially it fared with Ambrose Gray
That time I tell of. He had worked all day
At a great clearing; vigorous stroke on stroke
Striking, till, when he stopt, his back seemed
And the strong arms dropt nerveless. What of that?
There was a treasure hidden in his hat, -
A plaything for the young ones. He had found
A dormouse nest; the living ball coiled round
For its long winter sleep; and all his thought,
As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught
But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes,
And graver Lizzy's quieter surprise,
When he should yield, by guess and kiss and Unheeded, he had followed in the dark,
'T was a wild evening, wild and rough. "I knew,"
Close at his master's heels; but, swift as light, Darted before them now. "Be sure he's right, He's on the track," cried Ambrose. "Hold the light
Low down, he 's making for the water. Hark! Thought Ambrose, "those unlucky gulls spoke I know that whine, - the old dog's found them,
Well if my mistress had been ruled by me But, checking the half-thought as heresy,
He looked out for the Home Star. There it Mocked by the sobbing gust.
free, The thing thou sniffest is no game for thee. But what's the meaning? no lookout to-night! No living soul astir! Pray God, all's right! Who's flittering round the peat-stack in such weather?
One little voice made answer, "Here am I!"
"T was Lizzy's. There she crouched with face
as white,
Mother!" you might have felled him with a More ghastly by the flickering lantern-light
When the short answer to his loud "Hillo!" And hurried question, "Are they come?" was "No."
To throw his tools down, hastily unhook
The old cracked lantern from its dusty nook,
And, while he lit it, speak a cheering word,
That almost choked him, and was scarcely heard,
Was but a moment's act, and he was gone
To where a fearful foresight led him on.
Passing a neighbor's cottage in his way,
Mark Fenton's, him he took with short delay
To bear him company, for who could say
What need might be? They struck into the track
The children should have taken coming back
From school that day; and many a call and shout
Into the pitchy darkness they sent out,
And, by the lantern light, peered all about,
In every roadside thicket, hole, and nook,
Till suddenly as nearing now the brook-
Something brushed past them. That was Tink-
er's bark,
|