Pr'ythee, lead me in:
There, take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny; 't is the king's; — my robe,
And my integrity to Heaven, is all
I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me to mine enemies.
Crom. Good sir, have patience.
The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell.
The Worth of Woman.-SCHILLER.
1. Honored be woman! she beams on the sight,
Graceful and fair, like a being of light;
Scatters around her, wherever she strays,
Roses of bliss on our thorn-covered ways,
Roses of Paradise, sent from above
To be gathered and twined in a garland of love.
2. Man, on Passion's stormy ocean
Tossed by surges mountain high,
Courts the hurricane commotion,
Spurns at Reason's feeble cry.
Loud the tempest roars around him,
Louder still it wars within,
Flashing lights of Hope confound him,
Stuns him life's incessant din.
3. Neman invites him, with bliss in her smile,
To cease from his toil and be happy awhile,
Whispering wooingly, come to my bower!
Go not in search of the phantom of Power!
Honor and wealth are illusory: come!
Happiness dwells in the temple of Home.
5. Woman, contented in silent repose,
Enjoys in its beauty life's flower as it blows,
And waters and tends it with innocent heart;
Far richer than man with his treasures of art,
And wiser by far in her circle confined,
Than he with his science and flights of the mind.
6. Coldly to himself sufficing,
Man disdains the gentler arts,
Knoweth not the bliss arising
From the interchange of hearts.
Slowly through his bosom stealing,
Flows the genial current on,
Till, by age's frost congealing,
It is hardened into stone.
7. She, like the harp that instinctively sings,
As the night-breathing zephyr soft sighs o'er the strings,
Responds to each impulse with ready reply,
Whether sorrow or pleasure her sympathy try;
And tear-drops and smiles on her countenance play,
Like the sunshine and showers of a morning in May.
8. In the realm of man's dominion,
Terror is the ruling word,
And the standard of opinion
Is the temper of the sword;
Strife exults, and Pity, blushing,
From the scene despairing flies,
Where, to battle madly rushing,
Brother upon brother dies.
9. Woman commands with a milder control,
She rules by enchantment the realm of the soul.
As she glances around in the light of her smile,
The war of the passions is hushed for awhile;
And Discord, content from his fury to cease,
Reposes entranced on the pillow of Peace.
Unfading Hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul and dust to dust return!
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour;
Oh! then thy kingdom comes, immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye;
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day,
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin,
And all the phoenix spirit burns within!
Oh! deep enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the parting spirit sigh,
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untraveled by the sun,
Where Time's far wandering tide has never run,
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears.
'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod
The roaring waves, and called upon his God,
With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks and hovers o'er the dark abyss!
Daughter of Faith! awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb;
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts that roll
Cimmerian darkness on the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er,—the pangs of Nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes with eagle gaze,
The noon of Heaven unclouded by a blaze,
On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky,
Float the sweet tones of star-born melody;
Wild as that hallowed anthem sent to hail
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale,
When Jordan hushed his waves, and midnight still
Watched on the holy towers of Zion's hill!
Eternal HOPE! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began - but not to fade.
When all the sister planets have decayed,
When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below;
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile!
Summer Evening.-THOMPSON.
Confessed from yonder slow extinguished clouds,
All ether softening, sober Evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air;
A thousand shadows at her beck.
She sends on Earth; then that of deeper dye
Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still,
In circle following circle, gathers round,
To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
While the quail clamors for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care
Of Nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year,
From field to field the feathered seeds she wings.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home
Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves
The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail;
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart,
Unknowing what the joy-mix't anguish means,
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