Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast;

Lady. What do you mean?
Macb. Still it cried, “Sleep no more !” to all the

house: “ Glamis hath murdered sleep; and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more! Lady. Who was it that thus cried ? Why, worthy

thane, You do unbend your noble strength, to think So brain-sickly of such things :-Go, get some water, And wash this filthy witness from your

hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place ?
They must lie there : Go, carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

Macb. I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.

Lady. Infirm of purpose !
Give me the daggers: The sleeping, and the dead,
Are but as pictures : 'tis the eye of childhood

'
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt.

(Exit. Knocking within.
Macb. Whence is that knocking ?
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me ?
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand ? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green-one red.

eyes !

Re-enter LADY MACBETH. Lady. My hands are of your colour; but I shame To wear a heart so white. I hear a knocking At the south entry :-retire we to our chamber : A little water clears us of this deed : How easy is it then! Your constancy Hath left you unattended.—Hark! more knocking:

[K’nock. Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us, And show us to be watchers :-Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts. Macb. To know my deed—'Twere best not know myself.

Knock Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!

SHAKSPERE.

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

RICHARD III., ACT I., SCENE IV.
An Apartment in the Tower. Enter CLARENCE, and

BRAKENBURY.
Brak. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day ?

Cla. O, I have past a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful

man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days; So full of dismal terror was the time. Brak. What was your dream, my lord ? I pray you.

Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Gloster: Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches; thence we looked towards England, And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster, That had befallen us. As we paced along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloster stumbled ; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board, Into the tumbling billows of the main. O Lord ! methought what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of water in mine ears! What sights of ugly death within mine eyes ! Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes, Where

eyes

did once inhabit, there were crept (As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems, That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.

Brak. Had you such leisure, in the tiine of death, To gaze upon the secrets of the deep ?

Clar. Methought, I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wandering air ;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony ?

Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthened after life; 0, then began the tempest to my soul !

!

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. '
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cried aloud,—What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?
And so he vanished: Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shrieked out aloud, -
Clarence is come,-false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewkesbury ;-
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments !-
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling waked, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.

Brak. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

Clar. O, Brakenbury, I have done those things,-That now give evidence against my soul,For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites me! O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds, Yet execute thy wrath on me alone : O, spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children ! — I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me; My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

SHAKSPERE.

HAMLET.

ACT III., SCENE I.

Enter HAMLET.
Ham. To be; or not to be, that is the question :-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them ?—To die ;-to sleep ;--
No more ;-and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die ;—to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance, to dream ;-Ay, there's the rub;-
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life :
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The

pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ! who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of !