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Max.
Wallenstein.

O my God!

I have

Held and sustain'd thee from thy tott'ring childhood.
What holy bond is there of natural love,

What human tie, that does not knit thee to me?
I love thee, Max.! What did thy father for thee,
Which I too have not done, to the height of duty?
Go hence, forsake me, serve thy emperor;
He will reward thee with a pretty chain

Of gold; with his ram's fleece will he reward thee;
For that the friend, the father of thy youth,

For that the holiest feeling of humanity,

Was nothing worth to thee.

Max.

O God! How can I

Do otherwise? Am I not forced to do it?
My oath-my duty-honour-

Wallenstein.

How? Thy duty?

Duty to whom? Who art thou? Max.! bethink thee What duties may'st thou have? If I am acting

A criminal part toward the Emperor,

It is my crime, not thine. Dost thou belong

To thine own self? Art thou thine own commander?
Stand'st thou, like me, a freeman in the world,

That in thy actions thou should'st plead free agency?
On me thou'rt planted, I am thy Emperor;
To obey me, to belong to me, this is
Thy honour, this a law of nature to thee!
And if the planet, on the which thou livest
And hast thy dwelling, from its orbit starts,
It is not in thy choice, whether or no

Thou 'It follow it. Unfelt it whirls thee onward
Together with his ring and all his moons.

With little guilt stepp'd thou into this contest,
Thee will the world not censure, it will praise thee.
For that thou held'st thy friend more worth to thee
Than names and influences more removed.
For justice is the virtue of the ruler,
Affection and fidelity the subject's.
Not every one doth it beseem to question

The far-off high Arcturus. Most securely
Wilt thou pursue the nearest duty-let
The pilot fix his eye upon the pole-star.

COLERIDGE.

MARCH.

Now the doubling vapours fill
The vale, and hover o'er the hill;
The heath that right against the view
Lifts its slope side, is clad in blue;
O'er the far extended wood

Deep and still the gray mists brood
While by the hedge and on the grass
We brush the vapours as we pass.
Still is the air; the leaves and herbs
Not a single breath disturbs,

Save that, by fits, the breeze's sighs
In murmurs through the boughs arise.
Through the dead calm that reigns around,
Is heard distinctly every sound:

The rooks, that still from earliest dawn
With caw incessant pass the lawn,
Then quick repass, with burden fill'd,
Their annual aerie to rebuild;

The plough, that sometimes screaks;-anon
The swain's loud laugh, that guides it on;
The clapping gate, at which we see,
Slowly returning from the lea,

The sower with his empty sack;
The woodman, laden at his back
With roots and broken sticks and boughs,
That custom for his toil allows;
Or red-cloak'd housewife of the cot,
Who from the vill her stores has got
To cheer her household, when they leave
The barn or wood or field at eve;

Or truant boys, whose cheerful voice
Down in the vale we hear rejoice;
The horses' steps along the lane,
Or the loud ring of loaded wain;
Or from the public road afar
The rattle of the fleeter car

(While at each pause from yonder vale
We hear the cuckoo tell her tale,
Or gentle stockdove pour her moan
In deep and melancholy tone;)

The babbling hounds, whose distant cries
Waked by the horn's loud melodies,
Or shrill-voiced huntsman's echoing cheer
Die into music in the air;

The bleating flock from yonder steep,
The dog that bays the straying sheep,
And shepherd's hallo from the hill,
At which th' obedient dog is still;
The village artist's hasty stroke;
The slower flail; the falling oak
That echoes from the quaking dell;
The rapid whirl from cottage well;
The cattle, lowing from the farm;
And thousand sounds beside, that charm,
Now the wings of silence bear
Distinct along the listening air.

Thus as the airy harp reclined
Moves to the whispers of the wind
And, in return, from all its strings
With more melodious music rings;
The curious ear, in ectasies,
Vibrates to Nature's harmonies,
And strives the rapture to repay
By mimic echoes of her lay.

SIR E. BRYDGES.

ADDRESS TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS DEPOSITED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

THOU alabaster relic! while I hold

My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown, Let me recall the scenes thou couldst unfold,

Might'st thou relate the changes thou hast known; For thou wert primitive in thy formation, Lanch'd from the Almighty's hand at the creation.

Yes-thou wert present when the stars and skies
And worlds unnumber'd roll'd into their places;
When God from chaos bade the spheres arise,
And fix'd the blazing sun upon its basis,
And with his finger on the bounds of space
Mark'd out each planet's everlasting race.

How many thousand ages from thy birth
Thou slept'st in darkness it were vain to ask,
Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth,
And year by year pursued their patient task,
Till thou wert carved and decorated thus,
Worthy to be a king's sarcophagus!

What time Elijah to the skies ascended,
Or David reign'd in holy Palestine,
Some ancient Theban monarch was extended
Beneath the lid of this emblazon'd shrine,
And to that subterraneous palace borne,
Which toiling ages in the rock had worn.

Thebes, from her hundred portals, fill'd the plain, To see the car on which thou wert upheld, What funeral pomps extended in thy train,

What banners waved, what mighty music swell'd, As armies, priests, and crowds bewail'd in chorus, Their King-their God-their Serapis-their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they trust
Thee, and the lord of all the nations round,
Grim king of silence! Monarch of the dust!
Embalm'd, anointed, jewell'd, sceptred, crown'd,
Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark,
A leathern Pharoah grinning in the dark.

Thus ages roll'd; but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprison'd thing,
Which wore a ghastly royalty in death,
As if it struggled still to be a king;
And each dissolving century, like the last,
Just dropp'd its dust upon thy lid, and pass'd.

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt pour'd
His devastating host-a motley crew;

The steel-clad horseman,-the barbarian horde,-
Music and men of every sound and hue,—
Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines, and brutes,→→→
Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers, and lutes.

Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away
The ponderous rock that seal'd the sacred tomb;
Then did the slowly penetrating ray

Redeem thee from long centuries of gloom,
And lower'd torches flash'd against thy side,
As Asia's king thy blazon'd trophies eyed.

Pluck'd from his grave, with sacrilegious taunt,
The features of the royal corse they scann'd;
Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt,

They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand; And on those fields, where once his will was law, Left him for winds to waste and beasts to gnaw.

Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past,
Upclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill,
And nature, aiding their devotion, cast
Over its entrance a concealing rill;

Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep
Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

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