446 HOW CATILINE DENOUNCED. CATILINE DENOUNCED.-CICERO. TOW far, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shalt thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch, posted to secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards? Nothing, by the rally of all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the Senate in this fortified place? 'Nothing, by the averted looks of all here present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed?-that thy wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowledge, here in the Senate ?-that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of the night before; the place of meeting, the company convoked, the measures concerted? Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The Senate understands all this. The Consul sees it. Yet the traitor lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council,-takes part in our deliberations, and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, strenuous that we are, think we have amply discharged our duty to the State, if we but shun this madman's sword and fury! Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless, because forbearing. We have a decree,though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard, -a decree, by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since deserved. Then will I doom thee, when no man is found, so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the Republic, without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR. 447 whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason-the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noonday, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can attempt, which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more active in providing for the preservation of the State than thou in plotting its destruction! THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR.-BAYARD TAYLOR. The pescador, out in his shallop, Sees the dim bulk of the headland Loom over the waste of the tide; Stout Pablo of San Diego Rode down from the hills behind; And fiercer he sang, as the sea-winds 448 THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR. Now Bernal, the herdsman of Corral, Good reason had he to be gone! With his blanket wrapped gloomily round him, And the chasms and steeps of the headland When near him a mule-bell came tinkling, "Back!" shouted Bernal, full fiercely, Came up from the breakers' hoarse war; The gray mule stood firm as the headland; And smote, till he dropped it again. They fought, till the black wall below them SANDALPHON. And, frenzied with pain, the swart herdsman And jerked him, despite of his struggles, They grappled with desperate madness SANDALPHON.-LONGfellow. HAVE you read in the Talmud of old, In the Legends the Rabbins have told, How, erect, at the outermost gates With his feet on the ladder of light, The Angels of Wind and of Fire With the song's irresistible stress: By music they throb to express. But serene in the rapturous throng, Unmoved by the rush of the song, With eyes unimpassioned and slow, 449 450 SANDALPHON. Among the dead angels, the deathless To sounds that ascend from below ; From the spirits on earth that adore, And he gathers the prayers as he stands, And beneath the great arch of the portal, It is but a legend, I know, A fable, a phantom, a show, Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; But haunts me and holds me the more. When I look from my window at night, All throbbing and panting with stars, And the legend, I feel, is a part |