Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's * pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

5. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee:

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts. Not so thou:

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

6. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time-
Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving, - boundless, endless, and sublime,-
The image of Eternity, the throne

Of the Invisible! Even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

7. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers; they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

* Ar ma'da, a fleet of armed ships; it is here used to denote the famous Spanish fleet, called the Invincible Armada, which in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in 1588, was sent to make an attack upon England. This great fleet was partly destroyed by a storm.

Made them a terror,-'t was a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane,

--

as I do here.*

Byron.

1.

2.

3.

LESSON CXXX.

TELL US THY TALE, O SEA!

Tell us thy tale, O Sea!

When did thy restless waves begin to roll?

Who formed thy waters, bent, and bounded thee,
Spread thee from pole to pole?

Canst thou not tell, O Sea?

Tell us thy tale, O Sea!

Tell us thy story of creation's morn,

When suns and moons and planets sprung to birth ; When this young Universe of ours was born,

And into space first rose the bounding earth.

Tell us thy tale, O Sea!

Where are the ancient cities, where the thrones,
Whose people spread the shores of regal Tyre?
In Egypt there are left but lettered stones;
Nations and dynasties alike expire.

*The poet is supposed to plunge into the waters of the ocean, at the close of these verses. Lord Byron was a noted swimmer, and his favorite pas.ime, from early youth, was to sport among the waves, or to wander along the shore, watching their tempestuous tossings, and listening to the roar of the surf. He was born in London, in 1788, but his early youth was passed in Aberdeenshire, in Scotland.

4.

5.

6.

But thou remainest, O Sea!

Unchanged alone, immortal, boundless grave
Of Earth, and all her nations; for in thee
Lie armies, navies; and beneath thy wave
Sink jeweled bark and golden argosy.

Tell us thy tale, O Sea!
Than argosy or bark more precious far,

The brave and beautiful ingulfed by thee;
Tell us where all those loved and lost ones are!
Tell us their untold tale, O singing Sea!

Their forms alone I keep;
Thought, life, affection with me do not dwell.
Then for the tombless dead no longer weep,
Though o'er them roll my never-ceasing swell."
This is thy tale, O Sea!

Mrs. E. H. Barker.

LESSON CXXXI.

CESAR AT THE RUBICON.

1. It is related of Cæsar, that, on the ever-memorable night when he had resolved to take the first step (and in such a case, the first step, as regarded the power of retreating, was also the final step) which placed him in arms against the state, it happened that his head-quarters were at some distance from the little river Rubicon, which formed the boundary of his province.

2. With his usual caution, that no news of his motions might run before himself, on this night Cæsar gave an entertainment to his friends, in the midst of which he slipped away

unobserved, and with a small retinue proceeded through the woods to the point of the river at which he designed to cross. The night was stormy, and by the violence of the wind all the torches of his escort were blown out, so that the whole party lost their road, and wandered about through the whole night, until the early dawn enabled them to recover their true

course.

to cross

3. The light was still gray and uncertain, as Cæsar and his retinue rode down upon the banks of the fatal river, which, with arms in his hands, since the further bank lay within the territory of the Republic, proclaimed any Roman a rebel and a traitor. No man, the firmest or the most obtuse, could be otherwise than deeply agitated, when looking down upon this little brook, so insignificant in itself, but invested by law with a sanctity so awful. The whole course of future history, and the fate of every nation, would necessarily be determined by the irretrievable act of the next halfhour.

4. In these moments, and with the spectacle before him, and contemplating these immeasurable consequences for the last time that could allow him a retreat, impressed also by the solemnity and deep tranquillity of the silent dawn, whilst the exhaustion of his night-wanderings predisposed him to nervous irritation, Cæsar, we may be sure, was profoundly agitated. So prepared, we need not much wonder at what followed.

5. Cæsar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced in the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story, is, that others saw it as well as Cæsar; both pastoral laborers (who were present, probably in the character of

guides), and some of the sentinels stationed at the pass of the river. These men fancied, even, that a strain of music issued from the aërial flute; and some, both of the shepherds and the Roman soldiers, who were bolder than the rest, advanced toward the figure.

6. Amongst this party, it happened that there were a few Roman trumpeters. From one of these, the phantom, rising as they advanced nearer, suddenly caught a trumpet, and, blowing through it a blast of superhuman strength, plunged into the Rubicon, passed to the other bank, and disappeared in the dusky light of the dawn. Upon which Cæsar exclaimed: "It is finished; the die is cast! Let us follow whither the guiding portents from Heaven, and the malice of our enemy, alike summon us to go."

7. So saying, he crossed the river with impetuosity; and, in a sudden rapture of passionate and vindictive ambition, placed himself and his retinue upon the Italian soil; and, as if by inspiration from Heaven, in one moment involved himself and his followers in treason, raised the standard of revolt, put his foot upon the neck of the invincible republic which had humbled all the kings of the earth, and founded an empire which was to last for a thousand and half a thousand years.* In what manner this spectral appearance was managed whether Cæsar were its author or its dupe - will remain unknown forever; but undoubtedly this was the first time that the advanced guard of a victorious army was headed by an apparition, and we may conjecture that it will be the last. De Quincey.

* Cæsar crossed the Rubicon 49 B. C.; the western division of the Roman Empire terminated 476, A. D., but the eastern division continued until 1543, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks.

†This story of the apparition is related by Suetonius, one of the biographers of Cæsar. It was an old tradition which sprang from the excitement of those troubled times of the long civil wars which were commenced by this bold act of the great Roman general.