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Then o'er the strings his fingers gently move,
And melt the heart to pity and to love.

But, when Thou joinest with the Nine,
And all the powers of song combine,
We listen here on Earth:

The dying tones that fill the air,

And charm the ear of evening fair,

From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly birth.

ST. PETER'S CHURCH AT ROME.

LORD BYRON.

BUT lo! the dome, the vast and wondrous dome,

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To which Diana's marvel was a cell,

Christ's mighty shrine above His martyr's tomb!
I have beheld th' Ephesian miracle,

Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
Th' hyæna and the jackal in their shade:

I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell

Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary the while th' usurping Moslem pray'd:

But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee,
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook His former city, what could be,
Of earthly structures in His honour piled,
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

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Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

Enter its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find

A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by His brow.

Thou movest, but increasing with th' advance,
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
Deceived by its gigantic elegance;

Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize,
All musical in its immensities ;

Rich marbles, richer paintings, shrines where flame
The lamps of gold, the haughty dome which vies

In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the cloud must claim.

Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break,

To separate contemplation, the great whole;

And as the ocean many bays will make,
That ask the eye, so here condense thy soul
To more immediate objects, and control
Thy thoughts, until thy mind hath got by heart
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll

In mighty graduations, part by part,

The glory which at once upon thee did not dart,

Not by its fault, but thine. Our outward sense
Is but of gradual grasp; and as it is

That what we have of feeling most intense
Outstrips our faint expression; even so this
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice

Fools our fond gaze, and, greatest of the great,
Defies at first our nature's littleness,

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.

GOD IN NATURE.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

AND what are things eternal? - Powers depart,
Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat:

But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty exists;-immutably survive,

For our support, the measures and the forms
Which an abstract intelligence supplies;
Whose kingdom is where time and space are not.
Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart
Do, with united urgency, require,
What more that may not perish?

·Thou, dread source,

Prime, self-existing cause and end of all

That in the scale of being fill their place,
Above our human region, or below,

Set and sustain'd; Thou, who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that Thyself,

Therein, with our simplicity awhile

Mightst hold, on Earth, communion undisturb'd;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense
And reason's steadfast rule,

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Thou, Thou alone

Art everlasting, and the blessèd Spirits
Which Thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration Thou endurest; endure

For consciousness the motions of Thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
(Submission constituting strength and power)
Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty!
This Universe shall pass away,

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Glorious, because the shadow of Thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with Thee.
Ah! if the time must come in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these; the unimprison'd Mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still it may be allow'd me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul

In youth were mine; when, station'd on the top
Of some huge hill, expectant, I beheld

The Sun rise up, from distant climes return'd
Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day,
His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended: then my spirit was entranced
With joy exalted to beatitude;

The measure of my soul was fill'd with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,
With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!

VI.

PATRIOTIC, SENATORIAL, ORATORICAL.

THE SEVEN GREAT ORATORS OF THE WORLD.*

FORTUNE OF SCHINES.

DEMOSTHENES.

FOR my part, I regard any one, who reproaches his fellow-man with fortune, as devoid of sense. He that is best satisfied with his condition, he that deems his fortune excellent, cannot be sure that it will remain so until the evening: how then can it be right to bring it forward, or upbraid another man with it? As Eschines, however, has on this subject (besides many others) expressed himself with insolence, look, men of

*We here give a representative selection from each of these orators. The following extract from the Rev. Henry N. Hudson's Discourse delivered in Boston on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Daniel Webster will explain why we do so: "Sage and venerable Harvard, on mature consideration no doubt, has spoken Webster for one of the seven great orators of the world. At the theatre end of her Memorial Hall. which has the form of a semicircular polygon, in as many gablets or niches rising above the cornice, the seven heads, of gigantic size, stand forth to public view. First, of course, is Demosthenes the Greek; second, also of course, Cicero the Roman; third, Saint John Chrysostom, an Asiatic Greek, born about the middle of the fourth century; fourth, Jaques Benigne Bossuet, the great French divine and author, contemporary with Louis the Fourteenth; fifth, William Pitt the elder, Earl of Chatham, an Englishman; sixth, Edmund Burke, an Irishman, probably the greatest genius of them all, though not the greatest orator; seventh, Daniel Webster. How authentic the likenesses may be, I cannot say, except in the case of Webster: here the likeness is true; and, to my sense, Webster's head is the finest of the seven, unless that of Bossuet may be set down as its peer."

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