All the ripe fruit of three-score years was blighted in a day.

Exult, ye proud Patricians! The hard-fought fight is o'er.

We strove for honors,-'twas in vain: for freedom, -'tis no more.

No crier to the polling summons the eager throng; No tribune breathes the word of might, that guards the weak from wrong.

Our very hearts, that were so high, sink down beneath your will.

Riches, and lands, and power, and state,-ye have them: keep them still.

Still keep the holy fillets; still keep the purple gown, The axes and the curule chair, the car, and laurel

crown;

Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is done,

Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords have won.

But, by the shades beneath us, and by the gods

above,

Add not unto your cruel hate your yet more cruel

love!

Have ye not graceful ladies, whose spotless lineage

springs

From Consuls, and High Pontiffs, and ancient Alban kings?

Then leave the poor plebeian his single tie to life,The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of

wife;

The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vexed soul endures,

The kiss, in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours.

Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable

shame,

That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame,

Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye taste of our despair,

And learn, by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare.

CATILINE TO HIS FRIENDS-CROLY.

After his defeat in the race for the consulship.

Are there not times, Patricians, when great States
Rush to their ruin? Rome is no more like Rome,
Than a foul dungeon's like the glorious sky.
What is she now? Degenerate, gross, defiled,
The tainted haunt, the gorged receptacle,
Of every slave and vagabond of earth:
A mighty grave that luxury has dug,
To rid the other realms of pestilence!
Ye wait to hail me Consul?

Consul! Look on me,-on this brow, these hands;
Look on this bosom, black with early wounds.
Have I not served the State from boyhood up,
Scattered my blood for her, labored for, loved her?
I had no chance; wherefore should I be Consul?
No! Cicero still is master of the crowd.

Why not? He's made for them, and they for him:
They want a sycophant, and he wants slaves.
Well, let him have them!

Patricians! They have pushed me to the gulf. I have worn down my heart, wasted my means, Humbled my birth, bartered my ancient name, For the rank favor of the senseless mass,

That frets and festers in your Commonwealth;
And now,

The very men with whom I walked through life,
Nay, till within this hour, in all the bonds

Of courtesy and high companionship,

This day, as if the heavens had stamped me black,
Turned on their heel, just at the point of fate,
Left me a mockery in the rabble's midst,
And followed their plebeian Consul, Cicero!

This was the day to which I looked through life,
And it has failed me, vanished from my grasp
Like air!

Roman no more! The rabble of the streets

Have seen me humbled; slaves may gibe at me.
For all the ills

That chance or nature lays upon our heads,

In chance or nature there is found a cure.

But self-abasement is beyond all cure.

The brand is here, burned in the living flesh,

That bears its mark to the grave; that dagger's

plunged

Into the central pulses of the heart;

The act is the mind's suicide, for which

There is no after-health, no hope, no pardon.

CATILINE'S LAST HARANGUE TO HIS
SOLDIERS -CROLY.

Brave comrades! all is ruined! I disdain

To hide the truth from you. The die is thrown!

And now, let each that wishes for long life
Put up his sword, and kneel for peace to Rome.
Ye are all free to go.-What! no man stirs!
Not one! A soldiers' spirit in you all?

Give me your hands! (This moisture in my eyes
Is womanish; 'twill pass.) My noble hearts!
Well have you chosen to die! For, in my mind,
The grave is better than o'erburthened life;
Better the quick release of glorious wounds,
Than the eternal taunts of galling tongues:
Better the spear-head quivering in the heart,
Than daily struggle against Fortune's curse;
Better, in manhood's muscle and high blood,
To leap the gulf, than totter to its edge
In poverty, dull pain, and base decay.—
Once more, I say,—are ye resolved?—

Then each man to his tent, and take the arms
That he would love to die in; for, this hour,
We storm the Consul's camp.-A last farewell!
When next we meet, we'll have no time to look
How parting clouds a soldier's countenance.
Few as we are, we'll rouse them with a peal
That shall shake Rome!-

Now to your cohorts' heads: the word's-Revenge!

CATILINE TO THE CONSPIRATORS

Men of Gaul!

-CROLY.

What would you give for freedom?—
For freedom, if it stood before your eyes;
For freedom, if it rushed to your embrace;
For freedom, if its sword were ready drawn

To hew your chains off?

Ye would give death or life. Then marvel not
That I am here; that Catiline would join you!-

The great Patrician?—Yes, an hour ago,

But now the rebel; Rome's eternal foe,

And your sworn friend! My desperate wrong's my pledge.

There's not in Rome, no, not upon the earth,
A man so wronged. The very ground I tread
Is grudged me.-Chieftains! ere the moon be down,
My land will be the Senate's spoil; my life,
The mark of the first villain that will stab

For lucre. But there's a time at hand!-Gaze on!
If I had thought you cowards, I might have come
And told you lies. But you have now the thing
I am:-Rome's enemy, and fixed as fate

To you and yours forever!

The State is weak as dust.

Rome's broken, helpless, heart-sick. Vengeance sits
Above her, like a vulture o'er a corpse,

Soon to be tasted. Time, and dull decay,
Have let the waters round her pillar's foot;
And it must fall. Her boasted strength's a ghost,
Fearful to dastards, yet, to trenchant swords,
Thin as the passing air. A single blow,

In this diseased and crumbling state of Rome,
Would break your chains like stubble.
But "ye've no swords"!

Have you no plowshares, scythes?

When men are brave, the sickle is a spear.
Must freedom pine till the slow armorer
Gilds her caparison, and sends her out
To glitter and play antics in the sun?