The tale is hushed up now;
But there was one who rightly guessed
The hand that struck the blow.

"It drove her mad-yet not his deathNo-not his death alone;

For she had clung to hope, when all

Knew well that there was none;-
No, boy! it was a sight she saw
That froze her into stone!

"I am thy uncle, child,-why stare So frightfully aghast?—

The arras waves, but know'st thou not
'Tis nothing but the blast?

I, too, have had my fears like these,
But such vain fears are past.

"I'll show thee what thy mother saw,-
I feel 'twill ease my breast,
And this wild tempest-laden night
Suits with the purpose best;-
Come hither-thou hast often sought
To open this old chest.

"It has a secret spring; the touch Is known to me alone;

Slowly the lid is raised, and now-
What see you that you groan
So heavily? That thing is but
A bare-ribbed skeleton."

A sudden crash-the lid fell down,
Three strides he backward gave,―
"O God! it is my brother's self
Returned from the grave!

His grasp of lead is on my throat-
Will no one help or save?"

That night they laid him on his bed,
In raving madness tost;

He gnashed his teeth, and with wild oaths
Blasphemed the Holy Ghost;

And ere the light of morning broke,
A sinner's soul was lost.

CATO ON IMMORTALITY

BY JOSEPH ADDISON

It must be so-Plato, thou reasonest well!

Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
"Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
"Tis Heaven itself that points out a hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity!-thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!

The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me:
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,—
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works,-He must delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in must be happy.
But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures,-this must end them.

[Laying his hand on his sword.
Thus am I doubly armed. My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

THE CLOUD

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 't is my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depths of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen thro' me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape with a bridge-like shape,

Over torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof;

The mountains its columns be.