Thou who didst put to flight

Primeval silence when the morning stars
Exulting shouted o'er the rising ball;

O thou, whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul..
My soul which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold while others rest,
Through this opaque of nature and of soul
This double night, transmit one pitying ray
To lighten and to cheer, O lead my mind
(A mind that fain would wander from its wo,)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death,
And from each scene the noblest truth inspire
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best reason,' reason; my best will
Teach rectitude;' and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear;
Nor let the phial of thy vengeance, poured
On this devoted head be poured in vain.
The bell strikes one. (We take no note of time
But from its loss; to give it then a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I hear the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

Eve lamenting the loss of Paradise.

O unexpected stroke,' worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee Paradise ?3 thus leave
Thee native soil,' these happy walks and shades
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hoped to spend

Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers3
That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand,
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?

Thee lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world; to this obscure'

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits?

Soliloquy of Hamlet's Uncle.

Oh! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest2 curse upon't-
A brother's murder! Pray I cannot
Though inclination be as sharp as 't will,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent:
And like a man to double business bound
I stand in pause what I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood;
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereunto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence!

But what's in prayer, but this two-fold force,"
To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,

Or pardon'd being down?Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But oh, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder!"
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects' for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There, is no shuffling; there, the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.-What then?—what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?

O wretched state! oh bosom, black as death!
Oh limed soul; that, struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels! make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

Last night' I was at Mrs. Boscawen's, where there was a very splendid assembly. Lord' and Lady' Clifford, Mrs. Bouverie, the Misses' Middleton and Beaufort, and the Miss1 Walthams were present.

To die' they say is noble-as a soldier→→
But with such guides to point th' unerring road
Such able guides, such arms and discipline
As I have had, my soul would sorely feel
The dreadful pang which keen reflections give,

Should she in death's dark porch, while life was ebbing
Receive the judgment, and this vile reproach,

'Long hast thou wander'd in a stranger's land

A stranger to thyself and to thy God."

Pride.

1. (Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever nature has in worth denied
She gives in large recruits of needful pride;
For, as in bodies, thus in souls, we find

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind,
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,
And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

2. If once right reason drives that cloud away,
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day.
Trust not yourself; but your defects to know,
Make use of every friend-and every foe.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again.

3. Fir'd at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanc'd behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o er the vales and seem to tread the sky:
Th' eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:
But, those attain'd, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way;
Th' increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes;
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.

To be,' or not to be ?-that's the question.—
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer1
The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them ?—To die'—to sleep1-
No more, and by a sleep to say we end1
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to ?-'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ;'-to sleep;1

To sleep,' perchance to dream;-Ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whip and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely.
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes;
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear

1 Ó 260, R. 3.

То groan and sweat under a weary life?
But that' the dread of something after death,
That undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of,2
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.-Shakspeare.

To-morrow, didst thou say?

Methought I heard Horatio say to-morrow:
Gos to I will not hear of it-to-morrow.
'Tis a sharper, who stakes his penury
Against thy plenty--who takes the ready cash
And pays thee nought but wishes, hopes, and promises,
The currency" of idiots-injurious bankrupt,

That gulls the easy creditor!-to-morrow!

It is a period nowhere to be found

In all the hoary registers of time

Unless perchance in the fool's calendar.

Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society

With those who own it. No, my Horatio,

'Tis fancy's child, and folly is its father,

Wrought of such stuff as dreams are, and as baseless
As the fantastic visions of the evening.

But soft, my friend-arrest the present moment,
For be assured, they all are arrant tell-tales;
And though their flight be silent and their path
Trackless as the winged couriers of the air,
They post to heaven and there record thy folly,
Because, though stationed on the important watch
Thou, like a sleeping, faithless sentinel

Didst let them pass unnoticed, unimprov'd,