GRAVE.

Here the tongue warrior lies! disabled now,
Disarm'd, dishonour'd, like a wretch that's gagg'd
And cannot tell his ail to passers-by.

Here are the prude severe, and gay coquette;
The sober widow, and the young green virgın,
Cropp'd like a rose before 't is fully blown,

Great man of language; whence this mighty Or half its worth disclos'd. Strange medley here!

change?

This dumb despair, and drooping of the head?
Though strong persuasion hung upon thy lip,
And sly insinuation's softer arts

In ambush lay about thy flowing tongue;
Alas! how chop-fall'n now! thick mists and silence
Rest, like a weary cloud, upon thy breast
Unceasing. Ah! where is the lifted arm,
The strength of action, and the force of words,
The well-turn'd period, and the well-tun'd verse,
With all the lesser ornaments of phrase?
Ah! fled for ever, as they ne'er had been,
Raz'd from the book of fame; or, more provoking,
Perhaps some hackney hunger-bitten scribbler
Insults thy memory, and blots thy tomb
With long flat narrative, or duller rhymes,
With heavy-halting pace that drawl along;
Enough to rouse a dead man into rage,
And warm with red resentment the wan cheek.
Blair's Grave.
"Tis here all meet!

The shivering Icelander, and sun-burnt Moor;
Men of all climes, that never met before;
And of all creeds, the Jew, the Turk, and Christian.
Here the prince, and favourite yet prouder,
His sov'reign's keeper, and the people's scourge.
Are huddled out of sight. Here lie abash'd
The great negotiators of the earth,
And celebrated masters of the balance,
Deep read in stratagems, and wiles of courts;
Now vain their treaty skill! Death scorns to treat.
Blair's Grave.
Here the o'erloaded slave flings down his burden
From his gall'd shoulders; and when the cruel
tyrant,

With all his guards of tools and power about him,
Is meditating new, unheard-of hardships,
Mocks his short arm, and, quick as thought, escapes
Where tyrants vex not, and the weary rest.

Blair's Grave.

Here garrulous old age winds up his tale;
And jovial youth, of lightsome, vacant heart,
Whose every day was made of melody,
Hears not the voice of mirth: the shrill-tongued
shrew,

Meck as the turtle-dove, forgets her chiding.
Here are the wise, the gen'rous, and the brave;
The just, the good, the worthless, the profane,
The downright clown, and perfectly well-bred;
The fool, the churl, the scoundrel, and the mean,
The supple statesman, and the patriot stern;
The wrecks of nations, and the spoils of time,
Blair's Grave.
With all the lumber of six thousand years.

But know that thou must render up the dead,
And with high interest too! they are not thine
But only in thy keeping for a season,
Till the great promis'd day of restitution;
When loud diffusive sound of brazen trump
Of strong-lung'd cherub shall alarm thy captives,
And rouse the long, long sleepers into life,
Daylight and liberty.

Why should the grave be terrible?
Why should it be a word of fear,
Jarring upon the mortal ear?
There repose and silence dwell:
The living hear the funeral knell,

Blair's Grave

But the dead no funeral knell can hear.
Does the gay flower scorn the grave? the dew
Forget to kiss its turf? the stream
Refuse to bathe it? or the beam

Of moonlight shun the narrow bed,
Where the tired pilgrim rests his head?
No! the moon is there, and smiling too!
And the sweetest song of the morning bird
Is oft in that ancient yew-tree heard;
And there may you see the hare-bell blue
Bending his light form gently-proudly,
And listen to the fresh winds, loudly
Playing around your sod, as gay
As if it were a holiday,

Here the warm lover leaving the cool shade,
The tell-tale echo, and the babbling stream,
Time out of mind the favourite seats of love,
Fast by his gentle mistress lays him down,
Unblasted by foul tongue. Here friends and foes None but the dews by twilight given!

Lie close unmindful of their former feuds.

The lawn-rob'd prelate, and plain presbyter,
Erewhile that stood aloof as shy to meet,
Familiar mingle here, like sister streams
That some rude interposing rock had split.
Blair's Grave.

And children freed from durance they.

Bowri

Oh! let not tears embalm my tomb,

Oh! let not sighs disturb the gloom,
None but the whispering winds of heaven.

Μα

-Household gifts that memory saves
But help to count the household graves.
T. K. He

There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found,
They softly lie and sweetly sleep

Low in the ground.

GREATNESS.

James Montgomery.

Blest are they
That earth to earth entrust; for they may know
And tend the dwelling whence the slumberer's clay
Shall rise at last, and bid the young flowers bloom,
That waft a breath of hope around the tomb,
And kneel upon the dewy turf and pray!

In vain I seek from out the past
Some cherish'd wreck to save;
Affection, feeling, hope, are dead-

My heart is its own grave.

Mrs. Hemans.

To have a giant's strength: but it is tyrannous,
To use it like a giant.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea.

The soul and body rive not more in parting,
Than greatness going off.

Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.

O, be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Miss Landon. Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's

Earth has hosts, but thou canst show
Many a million for her one;
Through thy gates, the mortal flow
Has for countless years roll'd on.
Back from the tomb

No step has come :

There fix'd till the last trumpet's sound,
Shall bid thy prisoners be unbound.

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathom'd, boundless sea,
The silent grave!

Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallow'd up and lost

In one dark wave.

knee,

Command the health of it?

Shaks. Henry V.

O hard condition! and twin born with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of ev'ry fool,

Whose sense no more can feel but his own
wringing!

G. F. Croly. What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,
That private men enjoy! and what have kings
That privates have not too, save ceremony?

Longfellow's Poems.

I gazed upon the glorious sky
And the green mountains round;
And thought that when I came to lie
Within the silent ground,
"Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
Where brooks sent up a cheerful tune,
And groves a joyous sound,
The sexton's hand, my grave to make,
The rich green mountain turf should break.

GREATNESS.

Bryant's Poems.

Shaks. Henry V.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and
To find ourselves dishonourable

peep

about

graves.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
This man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
Alas! why would you heap those cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty:

I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.

Shaks. Richard III.
Heaven knows I had no such intent;
But that necessity so bow'd the state,
That I and greatness are compell'd to kiss.

Shaks. Henry IV. Part II.

A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
Shaks. Macbeth

"Tis a proud mendicant; it boasts, and begs;

Nabbs's Hannibal and Scipio. It begs an alms of homage from the throng, And oft the throng denies its charity.

Whose term the meanest hand can antedate -
The peasant with a heart at case,

Milton's Paradise Lost. Is a greater man than these.

In parts superior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
"Tis but to know how little can be known;
To see all others' faults, and feel our own;
Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge,
Without a second, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Pope's Essay on Man.
Bring then these blessings to a strict account,
Mako fair deduction; see to what they 'mount;
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How much for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say would'st thou be the man to whom they fall?
To sigh for ribands, if thou art so silly?
Mark how they grace lord Umbra, or sir Billy.
Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life?
Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
Pope's Essay on Man.

Power! 'tis the fav'rite attribute of gods,
Who look with smiles on men, who can aspire
To copy them.

Martyn's Timoleon.

Ay-when the red swoln stream comes roaring
down,

Full many a glorious flower, and stately tree,
Floats on the ruthless tide, whose unfelt sway
Moves not the mire that stagnates at the bottom.
Maturin's Bertram.

From my youth upwards
My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men,
Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joy, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger.

Where may the wearied eye repose

What equal torment to the grief of mind,
And pining anguish hid in gentle heart,
That inly feeds itself with thoughts unkind,
And nourisheth her own consuming smart?
What medicine can any leech's art
Yield such a sorc, that doth her grievance hide,
And will to none her maladie impart?

Spenser's Fairy Queen
That cruel word her tender heart so thrill'd,
That sudden cold did run through every vein,
And stony horror all her senses fill'd
With dying fit, that down she fell for pain.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Which when she heard, as in despightful wise
She wilfully her sorrow did augment,
And offer'd hope of comfort did despise:
Her golden locks most cruelly she rent,

Byron's Manfred. And scraitcht her face with ghastly dreriment;
Ne would she speak, ne see, ne yet be seen,
But hid her visage, and her head down bent,
Either for grievous shame, or for great teene,
As if her heart with sorrow had transfixed been.
Spenser's Fairy Queen

When gazing on the great,
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?

Yes-one-the first-the last-the best-
The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate-
Lequeath'd the name of Washington,

To make men blush there was but one!

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

Shaks. Richard II. The heart ungalled play:

Shaks. Richard II. You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.

That grows to seed: things rank and gross in Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel,