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For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age;
While kings in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes-though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die!
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendour to disgrace,
Enough no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell,
Yes, Self-abasement pav'd the way
To villain-bonds and despot-sway.

24.-Sarpedon to Glaucus.

Byron.

WHY boast we, Glaucus, our extended reign,
Where Xanthus' streams enrich the Lycian plain?
Our num'rous herds that range the fruitful field,
And hills where vines their purpled harvest yield?
Our foaming bowls with purer nectar crown'd,
Our feasts enhanc'd with music's sprightly sound?
Why on these shores are we with joy survey'd,
Admir'd as heroes and as gods obey'd?
Unless great acts superior merit prove,
And vindicate the bounteous pow'rs above:
That when with wond'ring eyes our martial bands
Behold our deeds transcending our commands,
Such, they may cry, deserve the sov❜reign state,
Whom those that envy dare not imitate.
Could all our care elude the gloomy grave,
Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,
For lust of fame I should not vainly dare
In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war;

But since, alas! ignoble age must come,
Disease, and death's inexorable doom,
The life which others pay let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe!
Brave though we fall, and honour'd if we live,
Or let us glory gain, or glory give.

Pope's Homer.

25.-Alexander the Great. From the 10th Book of Lucan's Pharsalia.

DISDAINING what his father won before,
Aspiring still, and restless after more,

He left his home; while fortune smooth'd his way,
And o'er the fruitful East enlarged his sway.
Red Slaughter mark'd his progress, as he past;
The guilty sword laid human nature waste,
Discolour'd Ganges' and Euphrates' flood,
With Persian this, and that with Indian blood.
He seem'd in terror to the nations sent,
The wrath of Heaven, a star of dire portent,
And shook, like thunder, all the continent !
Nor yet content, a navy he provides,
To seas remote his triumphs now he guides,
Nor winds nor waves his progress could withstand
Nor Liby's scorching heat, and desert land,
Nor rolling mountains of collected sand.
Had Heaven but giv'n him line, he had outrun
The farthest journey of the setting sun,

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March'd round the poles, and drank discover'd Nile
At his spring-head.-But winged fate the while
Comes on with speed, the funeral hour draws near;
Death only could arrest his mad career,

Who to his grave the world's sole empire bore,
With the same envy 'twas acquired before;
And wanting a successor to his reign,
Left all to suffer conquest once again.

Hughes.

26.-Lines Written on visiting a Scene in Argyleshire.
Ar the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,

On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.
All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode,

And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree;
And travelled by few is the grass-covered road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode
To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and

green,

One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,

To mark where a garden had been.

Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of Nature, it drew,
From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace;
For the night-weed and thorn overshadowed the place,
Where the flower of my forefathers grew.

Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all
That remains in this desolate heart!
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall;
But patience shall never depart!

Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright,
In the days of delusion by fancy combin'd
With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight,
Abandon my soul like a dream of the night,
And leave but a desert behind.

Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns
When the faint and the feeble deplore;

Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore!

Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain,
May thy front be unaltered, thy courage elate!
Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again;
To bear, is to conquer our fate.
Bb

Campbell.

27.-Part of a Poem on the Fear of God.

EARTH praises conquerors for shedding blood, Heaven those that love their foes, and do them good.

It is terrestrial honour to be crown'd

For strewing men, like rushes, on the ground.
True glory 'tis to rise above them all,
Without th' advantage taken by their fall.
He that in fight diminishes mankind,
Does no addition to his stature find;
But he that does a noble nature shew,
Obliging others, still does higher grow
For virtue practis'd such an habit gives,
That among men he like an angel lives:
Humbly he doth, and without envy, dwell,
Lov'd and admir'd by those he does excel.
Fools anger shew, which politicians hide;
Blest with this fear, men let it not abide.
The humble man, when he receives a wrong,
Refers revenge to whom it doth belong:
Nor sees he reason why he should engage,
Or vex his spirit, for another's rage.
Plac'd on a rock, vain men he pities, tost
On raging waves, and in the tempest lost.
The rolling planets, and the glorious sun,
Still keep that order which they first begun :
They their first lesson constantly repeat,
Which their Creator as a law did set.
Above, below, exactly all obey;

But wretched men have found another way.
Knowledge of good and evil, as at first,

(That vain persuasion !) keeps them still accurst!
The Sacred Word refusing as a guide,

Slaves they become to luxury and pride.

Waller.

28.-The last Speech of Cyrus.-From Xenophon. FEAR not when I depart; nor therefore mourn I shall be no where, or to nothing turn; That soul which gave me life was seen by none, Yet by the actions it design'd was known;

And though its flight no mortal eye shall see,
Yet know, for ever it the same shall be;
That soul which can immortal glory give,
To her own virtues must for ever live.
Can you believe that man's all-knowing mind
Can to a mortal body be confin'd?

Though a foul foolish prison her immure
On earth, she (when escap'd) is wise and pure.
Man's body, when dissolv'd, is but the same
With beasts, and must return from whence it came
But whence into our bodies reason flows,
None sees it when it comes, or where it goes.
Nothing resembles death so much as sleep,
Yet then our minds themselves from slumber keep.
When from their fleshly bondage they are free,
Then what divine and future things they see!
Which makes it most apparent whence they are,
And what they shall hereafter be, declare.

Denham.

29.-A Lady's Salutation to her Garden in the Country.
WELCOME, fair scene; welcome, thou lov'd retreat,
From the vain hurry of the bustling great.
Here let me walk, or in this fragrant bower,
Wrap'd in calm thought improve each fleeting hour.
My soul, while nature's beauties feast mine eyes,
To nature's God contemplative shall rise.

What are ye now, ye glittering, vain delights,
Which waste our days, and rob us of our nights?
What your allurements? what your fancy'd joys?
Dress, equipage, and show, and pomp, and noise.
Alas! how tasteless these, how low, how mean,
To the calm pleasures of this rural scene.

Come then, ye shades, beneath your bending arms Enclose the fond admirer of your charms; Come then, ye bowers, receive your joyful guest, Glad to retire, and in retirement blest; Come, ye fair flowers, and open ev'ry sweet; Come, little birds, your warbling songs repeat;

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