Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!

O limed soul, that, struggling-to be free,

Art more engaged! Help,-angels! make assay:
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

CONTRITION AND DOUBT.

Hamlet. Ay, so, God be wi' you! Now I am alone.
Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wann'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba-to him, or he-to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech.
Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet I,-
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
And can say nothing: no, not for a king,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,
A damn'd defeat was made.-Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha!
Why, I should take it; for it can not be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, cruel, kindless villain!
Oh, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must, like a wench, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon 't! foh! About, my brain !-I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul, that presently

They have proclaimed their malefactions;

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy
(As he is very potent with such spirits),
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

PLOTTING CRUELTY AND HORROR.

Macbeth. Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling-as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As that which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools of the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes. Now, o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft-celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides toward his design-
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives :

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

"Ah! mercy on my soul. What is that? My old friend's ghost? They say none but wicked folks walk; I wish I were at the bottom of a coal-pit. See! how long and pale his face has grown since his death: he never was handsome; and death has improved him very much the wrong way. Pray do not come near me! I wish'd you very well when you were alive; but I could never abide a dead man, cheek by jowl with me. Ah, ah, mercy on us! No nearer, pray; if it be only to take leave of me that you are come back, I could have excused you the ceremony with all my heart; or if you-mercy on us! no nearer, pray;—or if you have wronged any body, as you always loved money a little, I give you the word of a frightened Christian, I will pray as long as you please for the deliverance or repose of your departed soul. My good, worthy, noble friend, do, pray disappear, as ever you would wish your old friend to come to his senses again."

SORROW AND GRIEF.

"I love it! I love it! and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-chair?

I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,

I've bedewed it with tears and embalmed it with sighs;

"T is bound by a thousand bands to my heart,

Not a tie will break, not a link will start;

Would you know the spell? a mother sat there!

And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair.

In childhood's hour I lingered near
That hallowed seat with a listening ear

To the gentle words that mother would give

To fit me to die and teach me to live;

She told me shame would never betide

With truth for my creed and God for my guide;
She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer
As I knelt beside that old arm-chair.

I sat and watched her many a day

When her eye grew dim and her locks were gray,
And I almost worshiped her when she smiled
And turned from her Bible to bless her child:
Years rolled on, but the last one sped,
My idol was shattered, my earth-star fled!
I felt how much the heart can bear
When I saw her die in that old arm-chair.

Tis past! 't is past! but I gaze on it now
With quivering lip and throbbing brow;

'T was there she nursed me, 't was there she died,
And memory still flows with lava-tide.

Say it is folly, and deem me weak,

As the scalding drops start down my cheek;
But I love it! I love it! and can not tear
My soul from my mother's old arm-chair!"

"Three years ago to-day

We raised our hands to heaven,
And on the rolls of muster

Our names were thirty-seven;
There were just a thousand bayonets,
And the swords were thirty-seven,

As we took the oath of service

With our right hands raised to heaven.

Oh! 't was a gallant day,

In memory still adored,

That day of our sun-bright nuptials
With the musket and the sword!
Shrill rang the fifes, the bugles blared,
And beneath a cloudless heaven
Twinkled a thousand bayonets,

And the swords were thirty-seven.

Of the thousand stalwart bayonets
Two hundred march to-day;
Hundreds lie in Virginia swamps,
And hundreds in Maryland clay;
And other hundreds, less happy, drag
Their shattered limbs around,
And envy the deep, long, blessed sleep
Of the battle-field's holy ground.

For the swords-one night, a week ago,
The remnant, just eleven,

Gathered around a banqueting-board
With seats for thirty-seven;

There were two limped in on crutches,
And two had each but a hand

To pour the wine and raise the cup,
As we toasted 'Our flag and land!'

And the room seemed filled with whispers
As we looked at the vacant seats,
And, with choking throats, we pushed aside
The rich but untasted meats;

[ELIZA COOK.

Then in silence we brimmed our glasses,

As we rose up-just eleven,

And bowed as we drank to the loved and the dead
Who had made us THIRTY-SEVEN."

OF LOVE.

[PRIVATE MILES O'REILLY.

"I lov'd thee-long-and dearly,-Florence Vane;
My life's bright dream,—and early,-hath come again;
I renew—(in my fond vision)—my heart's dear pain,—
My hope, and thy derision,-Florence Vane.

Th' ruin-(lone-and hoary),-th' ruin old,-
Where thou didst mark my story (at even told;)—
That spot,-(th' hues Elysian-of sky-and plain,)—
I treasure—(in my vision),—Florence Vane.
Thou-wast lovelier-than th' roses- —(in their prime ;)
Thy voice-excell'd the closes-of sweetest rhyme;
Thy heart-was as a river—without a main;
Would I had loved thee never,-Florence Vane!
But-fairest,-coldest wonder! thy glorious clay
Lieth-the green sod under;—alas! th' day!
And it boots not-t' remember thy disdain—
T' quicken love's pale ember,-Florence Vane.
Th' lilies-of th' valley-by young graves-weep;―
Th' pansies-love t' dally-where maidens sleep;
May their bloom,—(in beauty vieing,) never wane-

Where thine earthly part-is lying,-Florence Vane."-[CoOKE.

BELIAL'S SPEECH AGAINST THE WAR WITH HEAVEN. MILTON.

I should be much for open war, O peers!
As not behind in hate, if what was urged,
(Main reason to persuade immediate war,)
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success:
When he, (who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful,) grounds his courage on despair.-
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim,-after some dire-revenge.

First, what-revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With armed watch, that render all-access-
Impregnable: oft on the bordering deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of night,
Scorning surprise! Or could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light; yet our great Enemy,—
All incorruptible, would on his throne