A thousand men more gloriously endowed
Have fallen upon the course: a thousand others
Have had their fortunes foundered by a chance,
Whilst lighter barks pushed by them: to whom add
A smaller tally, of the singular few,
Who, gifted with predominating powers,
Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace.
Though... my lone breast may burn
At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe
Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch
My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go !
Such are the last infirmities of those
Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe,
And yet, being mortal still, have no repose
But on the pillow of revenge-revenge,
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled slakeless thirst of change,
When we shall mount again, and they, that trod,
Be trampled on, while Death and Até range
O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks.-Great God!
Take these thoughts from me,-to thy hands I yield
My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod
Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield,
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain,
In turbulent cities and the tented field,
In toil and many troubles.
BYRON, Prophecy of Dante.
EXERCISE XXXVII.
Next night a dreary night
Cast on the wildest of the Cyclad isles,
Where never human foot had marked the shore,
I sat me down, more heavily oppressed,
More desolate at heart than e'er I felt
Before. Then Philomela o'er my head
Began to tune her melancholy strain
As piteous of my woes: till by degrees,
Composing sleep on wounded nature shed
A kind but short relief. At early morn,
Waked by the chant of birds, I looked around
For usual objects: objects found I none,
Except before me stretched the toiling main,
And rocks, and woods, in savage view behind.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crush'd the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transform'd,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell. Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?
This nymph that gazed upon his clust'ring locks,
With ivy-berries wreath'd, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus nam'd:
Who ripe, and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And in thick shelter of black shades imbower'd
Excels his mother at her mighty art,
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phœbus, which as they taste,
(For most do taste through fond intemp'rate thirst)
Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance,
Th' express resemblance of the gods, is chang'd
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were;
And they so perfect in their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual stye.
EXERCISE XXXIX.
Lady. How fares my lord?
Lord. That it fares well, thanks to this gallant youth, Whose valour saved me from a wretched death.
As down the winding vale I walked alone,
At the cross-way four armed men attacked me;
Who would have quickly laid Lord Randolph low;
Had not this brave and generous stranger come,
Like my good angel in the hour of fate,
And, mocking danger, made my foes his own.
They turned upon him, but his active arm
Struck to the ground, from whence they rose no more,
The fiercest two; the other fled amain,
And left him master of the bloody field.
Believe me, Syphax, there's no time to waste;
E'en whilst we speak, our conqueror comes on,
And gathers ground upon us every moment.
Alas! thou know'st not Cæsar's active soul,
With what a dreadful course he rushes on
From war to war. In vain has Nature formed
Mountains and oceans to oppose
his passage;
He bounds o'er all; victorious in his march,
Through winds and waves and storms he works his way,
Impatient for the battle; one day more
Will set the victor thundering at our gates.
Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment,
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comfort,
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow;
Making the mother, wife, and child, to see
The son, the husband, and the father, tearing
His country's bowels out.
Coriolanus, Act v. Sc. 3.
I have kept many a man, and many a great one;
Yet I confess, I never saw before
A man of such a sufferance: he lies now
Where I'd not lay my dog (for sure 'twould kill him),
Where neither light nor comfort can come near him;
Nor air nor earth that's wholesome. It grieves me
To see a mighty king, with all his glory,
Sunk o' th' sudden to the bottom of a dungeon.
Whither should we descend that are poor rascals,
If we had our deserts? 'Tis a strange wonder!
Load him with irons, oppress him with contempts,
(Which are the governor's commands) give him nothing,
Or so little, to sustain life 'tis next nothing,
They stir not him; he smiles upon his miseries,
And bears 'em with such strength, as if his nature
Had been nurs'd up, and foster'd with calamities.
He gives no ill words, curses, nor repines not,
Blames nothing, hopes in nothing, we can hear of;
And, in the midst of all these frights, fears nothing.
EXERCISE XLIII.
Octavius. You may do your will,
But he's a tried and valiant soldier.
Anthony. So is my horse, Octavius; and for that
I do appoint him store of provender;
It is a creature that I teach to fight,
To wind, to stop, to run directly on,
His corporal motion governed by my spirit;
And in some taste is Lepidus but so;
He must be taught, and train'd and bid go forth,
A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations,
Which, out of use and staled by other men,
Begin his fashion; do not talk of him,
But as a property.
So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found
Among the faithless, faithful only he:
Among innumerable false unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrify'd,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single. From amidst them forth he pass'd
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustain'd
Superior, nor of violence fear'd aught:
And with retorted scorn his back he turn'd
On those proud tow'rs to swift destruction doom'd.
And now went forth the morn,
Such as in highest heaven, arrayed in gold.
Empyreal from before her vanished night,
Shot through with orient beams: when all the plain,
Covered with thick embattled squadrons bright,
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