I reign not more over you than within you. The foundation of my throne is not more power than love. Suppose now my ambition add another province to our realm. Is it an evil? The kingdoms already bound to us by the joint acts of ourself and the late royal Odenatus, we found discordant and at war. They are now united and at peace. One harmonious whole has grown out of hostile and sundered parts. At my hands they receive a common justice and equal benefits. The channels of their commerce have I opened, and dug them deep and sure. Prosperity and plenty are in all their borders. The streets of our capital bear testimony to the distant and various industry which here seeks its market. This is no vain boasting; receive it not so, good friends. It is but truth. He who traduces himself, sins with him who traduces another. He who is unjust to himself, or less than just, breaks a law, as well as he who hurts his neighbor. I tell you what I am, and what I have done, that your trust for the future may not rest upon ignorant grounds. If I am more than just to myself, rebuke me. If I have overstepped the modesty that became me, I am open to your censure, and will bear it. But I have spoken that you may know your queen, not only by her acts, but by her admitted principles. I tell you then that I am ambitious, that I crave dominion, and while I live will reign. Sprung from a line of kings, a throne is my natural seat. I love it. But I strive, too, you can bear me witness that I do, that it shall be, while I sit upon it, an honored, unpolluted seat. If I can, I will. hang a yet brighter glory around it. William Ware. Portia's Speech on Mercy. The quality of mercy is not strained, His scepter shows the force of temporal power, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. And earthly power doth then show likest God's, The Bells.* Hear the sledges with the bells, Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. Hear the mellow wedding bells, What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! From the molten golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats * The compiler has taken the liberty of omitting many repetitions, believing that the ordinary reader will have less trouble in the rendering, while the elocutionist may insert them at will. To the turtle dove, that listens, while she gloats Oh! from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells, How it dwells! On the future!-how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! Hear the loud alarum bells, What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, And a resolute endeavor Now-now to sit, or never, By the side of the pale-faced moon. What a tale their terror tells How they clang, and clash, and roar! On the bosom of the palpitating air! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! Hear the tolling of the bells, Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels ! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the tolling of the bells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. Edgar A. Poe. Romeo and Juliet. Balcony Scene. Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound. JULIET appears on the Balcony, and sits down. But soft! What light through yonder window breaks! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. "It is my lady; Oh! it is my love: Oh, that she knew she were!" She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that? I am too bold. Oh, were those eyes in heaven, They would through the airy region stream so bright, See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek! Jul. Ah, me! Rom. She speaks, she speaks! Oh, speak again, bright angel! for thou art And sails upon the bosom of the air, Jul. Oh, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name: |