I'll rave no more in proud despair: I am not mad, I am not mad. 2. My tyrant husband forged the tale Which chains me in this dismal cell: 3. He smiles in scorn, and turns the key: 4. 'Tis sure some dream, some vision vain : What! I-the child of rank and wealth- Which never more my heart must glad, 5. Hast thou, my child, forgot, ere this, She'll ne'er forget your parting kiss, Nor round her neck how fast you clung; Nor how with her you sued to stay; Nor how that suit your sire forbade ; Nor how I'll drive such thoughts away; 6. His rosy lips, how sweet they smiled! His mild blue eyes, how bright they shone! None ever bore a lovelier child; And art thou now forever gone? And must I never see thee more, I am not mad: I am not mad. 7. Oh! hark! what mean those yells and cries? Now, now, my dungeon-grate he shakes. I am not mad, but soon shall be. 8. Yes, soon; for, lo you !-while I speak- Your task is done-I'm mad! I'm mad! BYRON. XCIII.-DARKNESS. 1. I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day, Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. And they did live by watch-fires; and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings, the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons : cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes, To look once more into each other's face. 2. A fearful hope was all the world contained: And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up, With mad disquietude, on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses, cast them down upon the dust, And gnashed their teeth, and howled. The wild birds shrieked, And flap their useless wings: the wildest brutes Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men Died; and their bones were tombless as their flesh And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay, 4. The crowd was famished by degrees. But two And they were enemies. They met beside Where had been heaped a mass of holy things For an unholy usage. They raked up, 5. And, shivering, scraped with their cold, skeleton hands, Blew for a little life, and made a flame, Each other's aspects-saw, and shrieked, and died; The world was void: The populous and the powerful was a lump, And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropped They slept on the abyss, without a surge,— The waves were dead: the tides were in their grave: The moon, their mistress, had expired before: The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished: Darkness had no need XCIV. THE AMBITIOUS YOUTH. E. BURRITT. THE incident described in this selection occurred, some years since, at the Natural Bridge, in Virginia. This bridge is an immense mass of rock, thrown by the hand of nature over a considerable stream of water, thus forming a natural passage over the stream. 1. THERE are three or four lads standing in the channel below the natural bridge, looking up with awe to that vast arch of unhewn rocks, which the Almighty bridged over these everlasting abutments, "when the morning stars sang together." The little piece of sky spanning those measureless piers, is full of stars, although it is mid-day. It is almost five hundred feet from where they stand, up those perpendicular bulwarks of limestone to the key-rock of that vast arch, which appears to them only the size of a man's hand. The silence of death is rendered more im pressive by the little stream that falls from rock to rock down the channel. The sun is darkened, and the boys have unconsciously uncovered their heads, as if standing in the presence-chamber of the Majesty of the whole earth. 2. At last, this feeling begins to wear away: they begin to look around them. They see the names of hundreds cut in the limestone abutments. A new feeling comes over their young hearts, and their knives are in their hands, in an instant. "What man has done, man can do," is their watchword, as they draw themselves up and carve their names a foot above those of a hundred full-grown men who had been there before them. They are all satisfied with this feat of physical exertion except one, whose example illustrates perfectly the forgotten truth, that there is no royal road to intellectual eminence. This ambitious youth sees a name just above his reach, a name that will be green in the memory of the world, when those of Alexander, Cesar, and Bonaparte shall rot in oblivion. It was the name of WASHINGTON. Before he marched with Braddock to that fatal field, he had been there and left his name a foot above all his predecessors. 3. It was a glorious thought of the boy, to write his name, side by side with that of the great father of his country. He grasps his knife with a firmer hand; and, clinging to a little jutting crag, he cuts again into the limestone, about a foot above where he stands: he then reaches up and cuts another place for his hands. It is a dangerous adventure; but as he puts his feet and hands into those notches, and draws himself up carefully to his full length, he finds himself a foot above every name chronicled in that mighty wall. While his companions are regarding him with concern and admiration, he cuts his name in rude capitals, large and deep, into that flinty album. His knife is still in his hand, and strength in his sinews, and a newcreated aspiration in his heart. Again he cuts another niche, and again he carves his name in large capitals. 4. This is not enough. Heedless of the entreaties of |