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Ham.

CCXXXII.

HAMLET.

ACT III, SCENE II.-A Hall in the Castle.

Enter HAMLET and Players.

PEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it outherods Herod : pray you, avoid it.

First Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it pro

The Rwose that decked her Breast.

383

fanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

First Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

W. Shakespeare.

CCXXXIII.

THE RWOSE THAT DECKED HER BREAST.

OOR Jenny wer her Robert's bride
Two happy years, an' then he died;
An' zoo the wold vo'k* meäde her come

Vorseäken, to her maïden hwome.

But Jenny's merry tongue wer dumb;
An' round her comely neck she wore
A murnên kerchif, where avore

The rwose did deck her breast.

She walked alwone wi' eye-balls wet,
To zee the flowers that she'd a-zet;
The lilies, white's her maïden frocks,
The spike to put 'ithin her box,
Wi' columbines an' hollihocks.

The jilliflower, an' noddèn pink,

An' rwose that touched her soul to think
Ov woone that decked her breast.

* Wold vo'k, old folk.

† Spike, lavender.

Wcone, one.

Vor at her weddèn, just avore
Her maïden hand had yet a-wore
A wife's goold ring, wi' hangèn head,
She walked along thik* flower-bed,
Where stocks did grow a-staïned wi' red,
An' meärygoolds did skirt the walk;
An' gathered vrom the rwose's stalk
A bud to deck her breast.

An' then her cheäk wi' youthvul blood
Wer bloomèn as the rwose's bud;
But now, as she wi' grief do pine,
'Tis peäle's† the milk-white jessamine.
But Robert have a-left behine

A little beäby wi' his feäce

To smile an' nestle in the pleäce

Wher the rwose did deck her breast.

W. Barnes.

CCXXXIV.

EVENING.

Abide with us for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.

St. Luke, xxiv. 29.

IS gone, that bright and orbéd blaze,
Fast fading from our wistful gaze;
Yon mantling cloud has hid from sight
The last faint pulse of quivering light.

In darkness and in weariness
The traveller on his way must press,
No gleam to watch on tree or tower,
Whiling away the lonesome hour.

Sun of my soul ! Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near:

* Thik, that.

t'Tis peale's, 'tis as pale as.

Oh may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes.

When round Thy wondrous works below
My searching rapturous glance I throw,
Tracing out Wisdom, Power, and Love,
In earth or sky, in stream or grove ;—

Or by the light Thy words disclose
Watch Time's full river as it flows,
Scanning Thy gracious Providence,
Where not too deep for mortal sense :-

When with dear friends sweet talk I hold,
And all the flowers of life unfold;
Let not my heart within me burn,
Except in all I Thee discern.

When the soft dew of kindly sleep
My wearied eyelids gently steep,
Be my last thought, how sweet to rest
For ever on my Saviour's breast.

Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live :
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.

Thou Framer of the light and dark,

Steer through the tempest Thine own ark:

Amid the howling wintry sea

We are in port if we have Thee.

The Rulers of this Christian land,

'Twixt Thee and us ordained to stand,Guide Thou their course, O Lord, aright, Let all do all as in Thy sight,

C C

Oh! by Thine own sad burthen, borne
So meekly up the hill of scorn,

Teach Thou Thy priests their daily cross
To bear as Thine, nor count it loss !

If some poor wandering child of Thine
Have spurned, to-day, the voice divine,
Now, Lord, the gracious work begin;
Let him no more lie down in sin.

Watch by the sick : enrich the poor
With blessings from Thy boundless store :
Be every mourner's sleep to-night
Like infant's slumbers, pure and light.

Come near and bless us when we wake,
Ere through the world our way we take;
Till in the ocean of Thy love

We lose ourselves in Heaven above.

7. Keble.

CCXXXV.

TO A CHILD.

OME, my beauty, come, my bird;
We two will wander, and no third
Shall mar that sweetest solitude

Of a garden and a child,

When the fresh elms are first in bud,
And western winds blow mild.

Clasp that short-reaching arm about a neck
Stript of a deeper love's more close embrace,

And with the softness of thy baby-cheek

Press roses on a care-distainéd face.

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