Pulled out his watch, and cried "Păst nine!
Why, zounds! they shut the gates at ten.”

Backward he turned his steps instanter,*
Stumping along with might and main,
And, though 'tis plain

He could n't gallop, trot, or canter,

(Those who had seen him would confess it), he
Marched well for one of such oběsity.

Eying his watch, and now his forehead mopping,
He puffed and blew along the road,
Afraid of melting, more afraid of stopping,
When in his path he met a clown
Returning from the town.

"Tell me," he pǎnted in a thawing state,

"Dost think I can get in, friend, at the gate?"
"Get in!" replied the hesitating loon,

Measuring with his eye our bulky wight,

66

Why—yes, sir,—I should think you might;

A load of hay went in this afternoon."

LESSON CLXIV.

Speech of Catiline before the Roman Senate, in reply to the Charges of Cicero. CROLY'S Catiline.

CONSCRIPT FATHERS!

I do not rise to waste the night in words;

Let that plebe'ian talk; 't is not my trade;

But here I stand for right. Let him show proofs;

For Roman right; though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there,
Cling to your master; judges, Romans slaves!
His charge is false; I dare him to his proofs.

* Immediately

actions speak

You have my answer: * * * Let my
But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong:
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts

The gates of honor on me,

turning out

The Roman from his birthright; and for what?

To fling your offices to every slave; (— Looking round him.)

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb;

And having wound their loathsome track to the top

Of this huge mouldering monument of Rome,

Hang hissing at the nobler man below.

Come, consecrated lictors! from your thrones;

(To the Senate.)

Fling down your sceptres: take the rod and axe,
And make the murder, as you make the law.

Was it the chime of a tiny bell,

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,
Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell,

That he winds on the beach, so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,
And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep,
She dispensing her silvery light,

And he his notes as silvery quite,

While the boatman listens and ships his oar,
To catch the music that comes from the shore?
Hark! the notes, on my ear that play,
Are set to words: as they float, they say,
"Passing away! passing away!"

But no; it was not a fairy's shell,

Blown on the beach so mellow and clear;
Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell,

Striking the hour, that filled my ear,
As I lay in my dream; yet was it a chime
That told of the flow of the stream of time.
For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,
And a plump little girl, for a pendulum, swung,
(As you've sometimes seen, in a little ring,
That hangs in his cage, a canary-bird swing);

And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet,*
And, as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say,
"Passing away! passing away!"

O, how bright were the wheels, that told

Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow!
And the hands, as they swept o'er the dial of gold,
Seemed to point to the girl below.

And lo! she had changed :— in a few short hours,
Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers,
That she held in her out-stretched hands, and flung
This way and that, as she, dancing, swung,
In the fulness of grace and womanly pride,
That told me she soon was to be a bride;

Yet then, when expecting her happiest day,
In the same sweet voice I heard her say,

66

Passing away! passing away!"
While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a shade
Of thought, or care, stole softly over,
Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made,
Looking down on a field of blossoming clover.

The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush
Had something lost of its brilliant blush;

This word, brought from the French into our own language, retains its French pronunciation, -boo-kay.

And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels,

That marched so calmly round above her, Was a little dimmed, as when evening steals

Upon noon's hot face:-Yet one could n't but love her, For she looked like a mother, whose first babe lay, Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day; And she seemed in the same silver tone to say, "Passing away! passing away!"

While yet I looked, what a change there came!

Her eye was quenched, and her cheek was wan: Stooping and staffed was her withered frame,

Yet just as busily, swung she on;

The garland beneath her had fallen to dust;
The wheels, above her, were eaten with rust;
The hands, that over the dial swept,
Grew crooked and tarnished, but on they kept,
And still there came that silver tone,
From the shriveled lips of the toothless crone,
Let me never forget to my dying day
The tone or the burden of her lay,
"Passing away! passing away!"

Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,

Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain
While crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,

When on my ear this plaintive strain

Slow, solemn, stole.

"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter, biting frost!
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice, unrepenting,

Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows.
See stern Oppression's iron grip,
Or mad Ambition's gory hand,

Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, Want, and Murder o'er a land!

"Even in the peaceful rural vale, Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, How pampered Luxury,- Flattery by her side, The parasite empoisoning her ear,

With all the servile wretches in the rear,

Looks o'er proud property, extended wide,

And eyes the simple rustic hind, Whose toil upholds the glittering show,

A creature of another kind,

Some coarser substance, unrefined,

Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.

"Where, where is Love's fond, tender thre,
With lordly Honor's lofty brow,

The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath Love's noble name,
Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone?

*

"O ye! who, sunk in beds of down, Feel not a want but what yourselves create Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,

Whom friends and fortune quite disown