686. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: By Sinel's death, I know I am thane of Glamis; but how of Cawdor? The thane of Cawdor lives, a prosperous gentleman; and to be King stands not within the prospect of belief, no more than to be Cawdor. Say from WHENCE you owe this strange intelligence; or WHY upon this blasted heath you stop our way with such prophetic greeting.

687. But let me ask by WHAT RIGHT do you involve yourself in this multiplicity of cares? WHY do you weave around you this web of occupation, and then complain that you cannot break it?

688. And when the prodigal son came to himself, he said, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and GO to my father; and will say unto him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hired servants.'" And he arose, and was coming to his father; but while he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. the son SAID unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son."

And

689. When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples, he left Judea, and departed again into Galilee.

690. Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.

691. STRANGER, if thou hast learnt a truth which needs experience more than reason, that the world is full of guilt and misery, and hast known enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, to tire thee of it, ENTER THIS WILD WOOD, and view the haunts of nature.

692. The calm shade shall bring a KINDRED calm, and the sweet breeze, that makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm to thy sick heart.

693. The massy rocks themselves, the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees, that lead from knoll to knoll, a causey rude, or bridge, the sunken brook, and their dark roots

*This passage has been previously related; and all similar repetitions are to be slurred, unless there is particular reason for emphasizing them.

with all their earth upon them, TWISTING HIGH,

TRANQUILLITY.

breathe FIXED

694. The RIVULET sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, seems with continuous laughter to REJOICE in its own being.*

695. Therefore said they unto him, "How were thine eyes OPENED?" He answered and said, "A man that is called JESUS made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, 'GO TO THE POOL OF SILOAM AND WASH:' and I went and washed, and I received sight.” * * * * * *** Then again the PHARISEES asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto THEM, He put clay upon mine eyes, and 1 washed, and do see."

66

696. And oft he traced the uplands, to SURVEY, when o'er the sky advanced the kindling dawn, the CRIMSON CLOUD, BLUE MAIN, and mountain GRAY, and LAKE dim gleaming on the smoky lawn ; far to the west, the long, long VALE withdrawn, where twilight loves to linger for a while; and now he faintly kens the bounding FAWN, and VILLAGER abroad at early toil. But lo! the SUN appears! and HEAVEN, EARTH,

OCEAN, SMILE.

697. O God! BE THOU A God, and spare while yet 'tis time! RENEW NOT Adam's fall: - Mankind were then but TWAIN; but they are NUMEROUS now as are the WAVES, and the TREMENDOUS RAIN, whose drops shall be less thick than would their GRAVES, were graves permitted to the sons of Cain.

698. Mountains interposed, make ENEMIES OF NATIONS, who had else, like kindred drops, been mingled into one.

699. No! DEAR as FREEDOM is, and in my heart's just estimation prized above all price, I would much rather be MYSELF the SLAVE, and WEAR the BONDS, than fasten them

on HIM.

700. A GREAT CITY · situated amidst all that nature could create of beauty and profusion, or art collect of science and magnificence, the GROWTH of many AGES the scene of splendor, festivity, and happiness. in one moment withered as by a spell-its palaces, its streets, its temples, its gardens glowing with eternal spring, and its inhabitants in the full enjoyment of life's blessings, obliterated from their very place in creation, not by war, nor famine, or disease, nor any of the natural causes of destruction to which earth had been accus

* See note on page 145, No. 780.

tomed—but IN a single night, as if by magic, and amid the conflagration, as it were, of nature itself, presented a subject on which the wildest imagination might grow weary, without even equalling the grand and terrible reality.

701. And THOU, O silent form, alone and bare, whom, as I lift again my head, bowed low in silent adoration, I again behold, and to thy summit upward from thy base sweep slowly, with dim eyes suffused with tears, AWAKE, THOU MOUNTAIN FORM.

702. YE STARS! which are the poetry of heaven, if in your bright leaves we would read the fate of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven, that, in our aspirations to be great, our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, and claim a kindred with you; for ye are a BEAUTY and a MYSTERY, and create in us such love and reverence from afar, that FORtune, FAME, POWER, LIFE, have named themselves a STAR.

703. A few hours more, and she will move in stately grandeur on, cleaving her path majestic through the flood,

as if she were a GODDESS of the Deep.

704. Falsely luxurious, will not MAN awake, and springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy the cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour, to meditation due and sacred song?

705. For is there aught in sleep can charm THE WISE? To lie in dead oblivion, losing half the fleeting moments of too short a life; — total extinction of the enlightened soul! Or else to feverish vanity alive, wildered and tossing through distempered dreams!

706. But yonder comes the powerful KING OF DAY, rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud, the kindling azure, and the mountain's brow illumed with fluid gold, his near approach betoken glad. LO, NOW, APPARENT ALL, aslant the dew-bright earth and colored air, he looks in boundless MAJESTY abroad, and sheds the shining day, that burnished plays on rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams, HIGH GLEAMING FROM AFAR.

707. PRIME CHEERER, LIGHT! of all material beings FIRST AND BEST; EFFLUX DIVINE, NATURE'S RESPLENDENT ROBE! without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt in unessential gloom; and THOU, O SUN! SOUL of surrounding WORLDS! in whom, best seen, shines out thy Maker-may I sing of THEE?

708. 'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, as with a chain indissoluble bound, thy system rolls entire; from the

far bourn of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk can scarce be caught by philosophic eye, LOST in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

709. And thus, in silent waiting, stood the piles of stone and piles of wood; TILL DEATH, who, in his vast affairs, ne'er puts things off — as men in theirs - and thus, if I the truth must tell, does his work FINALLY and WELL, WINKED at our hero as he passed, "Your house is FINISHED, sir, at last; a NARROWER house- a house of CLAY

for another day.”

- your palace

710. The smoothness of flattery cannot Now avail cannot SAVE us in this rugged and awful crisis.

711. What PROFIT hath a man of all his labor, which he taketh under the sun?

712. IS there any thing whereof it may be said, “See, this is new?" The thing which HAS been, it is that which shall be, and that which IS done, is that which SHALL be done, and there is NO NEW thing under the sun.

713. 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.

714. CENTRE of LIGHT AND ENERGY! thy way is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne, morning and evening, and at noon of day, far in the blue, untended and alone Ere the first wakened airs of earth had blown, ON didst thou march, triumphant in thy light. Then didst thou send thy glance, which still hath flown wide through the never-ending worlds of night; and yet thy full orb burns with flash unquenched and bright.

715. In thee, FIRST LIGHT, the bounding ocean smiles, when the quick winds uprear it in a swell, that rolls in glittering green around the isles, where ever-springing fruits and blossoms dwell.

716. THINE are the MOUNTAINS, where they purely lift snows that have never wasted, in a sky which hath no stain; below the storm may drift its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by; - ALOFT, in thy eternal smile, they lie, DAZZLING, but COLD;-thy farewell glance

looks there, and when below thy hues of beauty die, girt round them as a rosy belt, they bear into the high, dark vault, a brow that still is fair.

717. May THE LIKE SERENITY, in such dreadful circumstances, and a DEATH EQUALLY GLORIOUS, be the lot of ALL whom TYRANNY, of whatever denomination or description, SHALL, in any age, or in any country, CALL to expiate their virtues on the scaffold.

718. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a MOMENT, in the TWINKLING of an EYE, AT the LAST TRUMP; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this CORRUPTIBLE must put on INCORRUPTION, and this MORTAL must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, DEATH IS

SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY.

719. O WINTER! RULER OF THE INVERTED YEAR! thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks fringed with a beard made white with other snows than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, a leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne a sliding car, indebted to no WHEELS, but urged by STORMS along its slippery way, I LOVE THEE, all UNLOVELY as thou seem'st, and DREADED as thou ART.

720. Lo! the UNLETTERED HIND, who never knew to raise his mind excursive to the heights of abstract contemplation, as he sits on the green hillock by the hedge-row side, what time the insect swarms are murmuring, and marks, in silent thought, the broken clouds, that fringe with loveliest hues the evening sky, FEELS in his soul the hand of nature rouse the thrill of GRATITUDE to him who FORMED the goodly prospect; he beholds the GOD THRONED in the WEST; and his reposing ear hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze, that floats through neighboring copse or fairy brake, or lingers, playful, on the haunted stream.

721. They shall hear of my VENGEANCE, that would scorn to LISTEN to the story of my WRONGS. The MISERABLE HIGHLAND DROVER, bankrupt, barefooted, stripped of all, dishonored, and hunted down, because the avarice of others grasped at more than that poor all could pay, shall BURST on them in an AWFUL CHANGE.