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PARADISE.-Milton.

So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up-grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up-sprung:
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd with gay enamell'd colours mix'd;
On which the Sun more glad impress'd his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd
That landscape; and of pure, now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleased, they slack their course, and many a league, Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.

THE silence often of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails.-Shakspeare.

DYING YET LIVING.-Theodore Tilton.

SHE died, yet is not dead!

Ye saw a daisy on her tomb :

It bloomed to die-she died to bloom;
Her summer hath not sped.

She died, yet is not dead!
Ye saw the jewels all unset;
But God let fall a coronet
To crown her ransomed head.

She died, yet is not dead!

Ye saw her gazing towards a sky
Whose lights are shut from mortal eye;
She lingered, yearned, and fled.

She died, yet is not dead!

Through pearly gate, on golden street,
She went her way with shining feet:
Go ye, and thither tread!

CATO'S SOLILOQUY.-Addison.

IT must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well,-
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the Soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity, that stirs within us;

'Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !

The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works), he must delight in virtue,
And that which he delights in must be happy.

But when, or where ?-This world was made for Cæsar.

I'm weary of conjectures-this must end them.
Thus am I doubly arm'd. My death and life,
My bane and antidote are both before me.
This, in a moment, brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The Soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point:
The stars shall fade away, the Sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds.

HYMN OF THE CITY.-Bryant.

NOT in the solitude

Alone, may man commune with Heaven, or see,
Only in savage wood

And sunny vale, the Present Deity;

Or only hear His voice

Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice.

E'en here do I behold

Thy steps, Almighty!- here, amidst the crowd
Through the great city rolled,

With everlasting murmur, deep and loud-
Choking the ways that wind

'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind.

Thy golden sunshine comes

From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies, And lights their inner homes!

For them thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies, And givest them the stores

Of ocean, and the harvest of its shores.

Thy spirit is around,

Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along ;
And this eternal sound-

Voices and footfalls of the numberless throng-
Like the resounding sea,

Or like the raving tempest, speaks of thee.

And when the hours of rest

Come, like a calm upon the mid-sea brine,
Hushing its billowy breast,

The quiet of that moment, too, is thine;
It breathes of Him who keeps

The vast and helpless city while it sleeps.

KING HENRY IV., PART II., ACT III., SCENE I. Shakspeare.

Enter King Henry in his night-gown, with a Page. K. Hen. Go, call the earls of Surrey and of Warwick; But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters, And well consider of them: make good speed.

[Exit Page.

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?—
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter Warwick and Surrey.

War. Many good morrows to your majesty!
K. Hen. Is it good morrow, lords?

War. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.

K. Hen. Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords. Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

War. We have, my liege.

K. Hen. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom,
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger, near the heart of it.

War. It is but as a body yet distemper'd;
Which to its former strength may be restor'à
With good advice and little medicine :-
My lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.

K. Hen. O Heaven! that one might read the book of fate,

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent

(Weary of solid firmness) melt itself

Into the sea! and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,-
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
"Tis not ten years gone

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after,
Were they at wars: it is but eight years, since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who, like a brother, toil'd in my affairs,

And laid his love and life under my foot;

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by?

(You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember), [To Warwick. When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,

K

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