2.

(f.)

3.

The majesty of Death has swept

All other from his face!

And thou, upon thy mother's breast,

No longer lean adown,

But take the Glory for the Rest,

And rule the land that loves thee best.

She heard and wept,

She wept to wear a crown!

They decked her courtly halls;

They reined her hundred steeds;
They shouted at her palace gate,

"A noble Queen succeeds!"

Her name has stirred the mountain's sleep,

Her praise has filled the town,

And mourners God had stricken deep,
Looked hearkening up, and did not weep.

Alone she wept,

Who wept to wear a crown!

She saw no purples shine,

For tears had dimmed her eyes;

She only knew her childhood's flowers

Were happier pageantries!

And while her heralds played their part,

Those million shouts to drown,—

*When Queen Victoria was informed of her accession to the throne, on the death of her uncle, she was so affected with the consciousness of the heavy responsibilities which had in a moment fallen upon her, that she wept.

4.

"God save the Queen," from hill to mart,
She heard through all her beating heart,
And turned and wept—

She wept to wear a crown!

God save thee, weeping Queen!
Thou shalt be well beloved!
The tyrant's scepter can not move
As those pure tears have moved!
The nature in thine eyes we see
That tyrants can not own,―
The love that guardeth liberties!
Strange blessing on the nation lies,
Whose sovereign wept-

Yea, wept to wear a crown!

1. Coriolanus was a distinguished Roman Senator and general, who had rendered eminent services to the Republic. But these services were no security against envy and popular prejudice. He was, at length, treated with great severity

and ingratitude, by the senate and people of Rome; and obliged to leave his country to preserve his life. Of a haughty and indignant spirit, he resolved to avenge himself; and, with this view, applied to the Volscians, the enemies of Rome, and tendered them his services against his native country.

2. The offer was cordially embraced, and Coriolanus was made general of the Volscian army. He recovered from the Romans all the towns they had taken from the Volsci; carried by assault several cities in Latium; and led his troops within five miles of the city of Rome. After several unsuccessful embassies from the Senate, all hope of pacifying the injured exile, appeared to be extinguished; and the sole business of Rome was to prepare, with the utmost diligence, for sustaining a siege.

3. The young and able-bodied men had instantly the guard of the gates and trenches assigned to them; while those of the veterans who, though exempt by their age from bearing arms, were yet capable of service, undertook the defense of the ramparts. The women, in the mean while, terrified by these movements, and the impending danger, into a neglect of their wonted decorum, ran tumultuously from their houses to the temples. Every sanctuary, and especially the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,* resounded with the wailings and loud supplications of women, prostrate before the statues of their divinities.

4. In this general consternation and distress, Valeria (sister of the famous Valerius Poplicola), as if moved by a divine impulse, suddenly took her stand upon the top of the steps of the temple of Jupiter, assembled the women about her, and, having first exhorted them not to be terrified by the greatness of the present danger, confidently declared, "That there was yet hope for the republic; that its preservation depended upon them, and upon their performance of the duty they owed their country."

* So called from his temple on Mount Capitolinus.

"what resource can

5. "Alas!" cried one of the company, there be in the weakness of wretched women, when our bravest men, our ablest warriors themselves, despair ?" "It is not by the sword, nor by strength of arms," replied Valeria, “that we are to prevail; these belong not to our sex. Soft moving words must be our weapons and our force. Let us all, in our mourning attire, and accompanied by our children, go and entreat Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, to intercede with her son for our common country. Veturia's prayers will bend his soul to pity. Haughty and implacable as he has hitherto appeared, he has not a heart so cruel and obdurate as not to relent, when he shall see his mother, his revered, his beloved mother, a weeping suppliant at his feet."

6. This motion being universally applauded, the whole train of women took their way to Veturia's house. Her son's wife, Volumnia, who was sitting with her when they arrived, and greatly surprised at their coming, hastily asked them the meaning of so extraordinary an appearance. "What is it," said she, "what can be the motive that has brought so numerous a company of visitors to this house of sorrow ?"

7. Valeria then addressed herself to the mother: "It is to you, Veturia, that these women have recourse in the extreme peril, with which they and their children are threatened. They entreat, implore, conjure you to compassionate their distress, and the distress of our common country. Suffer not Rome to become a prey to the Volsci, and our enemies to triumph over our liberty. Go to the camp of Coriolanus; take with you Volumnia and her two sons; let that excellent wife join her intercession to yours. Permit these women, with their children, to accompany you: they will all cast themselves at his feet. O Veturia, conjure him to grant peace to his fellow

citizens !

8. "Cease not to beg till you have obtained. So good a man can never withstand your tears: our only hope is in you. Come, then Veturia; the danger presses; you have no

time for deliberation; the enterprise is worthy of your virtue; Heaven will crown it with success; Rome shall once more owe its preservation to our sex. You will justly acquire to yourself an immortal fame, and have the pleasure to make every one of us a sharer in your glory."

men.

9. Veturia, after a short silence, with tears in her eyes, answered: "Weak, indeed, is the foundation of your hope, Valeria, when you place it in the aid of two miserable woWe are not wanting in affection to our country, nor need we any remonstrance or entreaties to excite our zeal for its preservation. It is the power only of being serviceable that fails us. Ever since that unfortunate hour, when the people in their madness so unjustly banished Coriolanus, his heart has been no less estranged from his family than from his country.

10. "You will be convinced of this sad truth by his own words to us at parting. When he returned home from the assembly, where he had been condemned, he found us in the depth of affliction, bewailing the miseries that were sure to follow our being deprived of so dear a son, and so excellent a husband. We had his children upon our knees. He kept himself at a distance from us; and, when he had awhile stood silent, motionless as a rock, his eyes fixed, and without shedding a tear: 'Tis done,' he said. 'O mother, and thou, Volumnia, the best of wives, to you Marcius is nɔ more!

11. "I am banished hence for my affection to my country, and the services I have done it. I go this instant; and I leave forever a city where all good men are proscribed. Support this blow of fortune with the magnanimity that becomes women of your high rank and virtue. I commend my children to your care. Educate them in a manner worthy of you, and of the race from which they come. Heaven grant they may be more fortunate than their father, and never fall short of him in virtue; and may you in them find your consolation !-Farewell "?