men wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!-I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! Cassius Instigating Brutus. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Well, honour is the subject of my story. In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as Cæsar; so were you: The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, And bade him follow: so indeed he did. I, as Eneas our great ancestor Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man Is now become a god, and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him. He had a fever when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake; And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans. So get the start of the majestic world Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Walk under his huge legs and peep about Men at some time are masters of their fates: But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Brutus, and Cæsar: what should be in that Cæsar? That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed! Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, O, you and I have heard our fathers say As easily as a king. Julius Cæsar, I, 2. The Dead Heroes. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. As we cover the graves of the heroic dead with flowers the past rises before us like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle. We hear the sounds of preparation-the music of the boisterous drums the silver voices of heroic bugles. We hear the appeals of orators; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them part from those they love. Some are walking for the last time in the quiet woody places with the maidens they adore. We hear the whispers and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles kissing babies that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are parting from mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts again and again, and say nothing; and some are talking with wives, and trying with brave words spoken in the old tones to drive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms— standing in the sunlight sobbing; at the turn of the road a hand waves-she answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone and forever. We see them all as they march proudly away, under the flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild music of war— marching down the streets of the great cities, through the towns and across the prairies, to do and to die for the eternal right. We go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain, on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood, in the furrows of old fields. We are with them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them pierced with balls and torn by shells in the trenches by the forts and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron with nerves of steel. We are at home when the news reaches us that they are dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with the last grief. Those heroes are dead. They sleep under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of the sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless place of rest. Earth may run red with other wars-they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of the conflict, they found the serenity of death. The Ocean. LORD BYRON. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean―roll! When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields The armaments which thunderstrike the walls These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou;Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, |