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ness of free minds with unbounded authority-something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world, which should resound throughout the universe.

Ex. LXXIX.-VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

THE king was on his throne,
The satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deemed divine-
Jehovah's vessels-hold

The godless heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:

The fingers of a man,—
A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage,
They saw-but knew no more,

BYRON.

A captive in the land,
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth:
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom passed away;
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone;

The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne !"

Ex. LXXX.-THE BURIAL OF ARNOLD.*

YE'VE gathered to your place of prayer,
With slow and measured tread:
Your ranks are full, your mates all there-
But the soul of one has fled.

He was the proudest in his strength,
The manliest of ye all;

Why lies he at that fearful length,

And ye around his pall?

Ye reckon it in days, since he
Strode up that foot-worn aisle,
With his dark eye flashing gloriously,
And his lip wreathed with a smile.
Oh! had it been but told you then,
To mark whose lamp was dim,
From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men,
Would ye have singled him?

Whose was the sinewy arm, which flung
Defiance to the ring?

*A member of the Senior Class in Yale College.

WILLIS.

Whose laugh of victory loudest rung,
Yet not for glorying?

Whose heart, in generous deed and thought,
No rivalry might brook,
And yet distinction claiming not?
There lies he-go and look!

On now-his requiem is done;
The last deep prayer is said;-
On to his burial, comrades-on,
With the noblest of the dead!
Slow-for it presses heavily ;-
It is a man ye bear!

Slow-for our thoughts dwell wearily
On the noble sleeper there.

Tread lightly, comrades!-ye have laid
His dark locks on his brow-
Like life-save deeper light and shade:—
We'll not disturb them now.
Tread lightly-for 'tis beautiful,
That blue veined eyelid's sleep,
Hiding the eye death left so dull,——
Its slumber we will keep.

Rest now!-his journeying is done,—
Your feet are on his sod ;-
Death's chain is on your champion-
He waiteth here his God!
Ay,-turn and weep,-'tis manliness
To be heart-broken here,-
For the grave of earth's best nobleness
Is watered by the tear.

Ex. LXXXI.-PROCLIVIOR. (A slight Variation on LONGFELLOW'S "EXCELSIOR.")

THE shades of night were falling fast,
As tow'rd the Haymarket there passed
A youth, whose look told in a trice
That his taste chose the queer device---
PROCLIVIOR!

PUNCH.

His hat, a wide-awake; beneath
He tapped a cane against his teeth;
His eye was bloodshot, and there rung,
Midst scraps of slang, in unknown tongue,
PROCLIVIOR!

In calm first-floors he saw the light
Of circles cosy for the night;

But far ahead the gas-lamps glow;

He turned his head, and murmured "Slow." PROCLIVIOR!

"Come early home," his uncle said,
"We all are early off to bed;

The family blame you far and wide;"
But loud that noisy youth replied—
PROCLIVIOR!

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"Stay," said his aunt, come home to sup; Early retire--get early up."

A wink half quivered in his eye;.

He answered to the old dame's sigh-
PROCLIVIOR!

"Mind how you meddle with that lamp!
And mind the pavement, for it's damp!"
Such was the peeler's last good-night.
A faint voice stuttered out "All right."
PROCLIVIOR!

At break of day, as far west-ward
A cab rolled o'er the highways hard,
The early mover stopped to stare
At the wild shouting of the fair—
PROCLIVIOR!

And by the bailiff's faithful hound,
At breakfast-time, a youth was found,
Upon three chairs, with aspect nice,
True to his young life's queer device,
PROCLIVIOR!

Thence, on a dull and muggy day,
They bore him to the bench away,
And there for several months he lay,
While friends speak gravely as they say—
PROCLIVIOR!

Ex. LXXXII.—THE MADMAN.

MANY a year hath passed away,

Many a dark and dismal year,
Since last I roamed in the lights of day,
Or mingled my own with another's tear:
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!

Here have I watched in this dungeon cell,
Longer than memory's tongue can tell;
Here have I shrieked in my wild despair,

ANON.

When the damnéd fiends from their prison came, Sported and gamboled, and mocked me here,

With their eyes of fire, and their tongues of flame;
Shouting for ever and aye my name!

Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!

How long I have been in this dungeon here,
Little I know, and nothing I care:

What to me is the day, or night,
Summer's heat or autumn sere,

Springtide flowers, or winter's blight, Pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear?

Time! what care I for thy flight?

Joy! I spurn thee with disdain:

Nothing love I but this clanking chain.

Once I broke from its iron hold:
Nothing I said, but silent and bold,

Like the shepherd that watches his gentle fold,
Like the tiger that crouches in mountain lair,
Hours upon hours, so watched I here;

Till one of the fiends that had come to bring
Herbs from the valley, and drink from the spring,
Stalked through my dungeon entrance in!

Ha! how he shrieked to see me free!
Ho! how he trembled and knelt to me,
He who had mocked me many a day,
And barred me out from its cheerful ray
Gods! how I shouted to see him pray!

!

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