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women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hea: ts. And dying thus around us every day!

SCENE FROM "MACBETH.”

Macbeth alone.

Macbeth. Is this a dagger which I see before me?

Shakespeare.

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As that which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still,
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes. - Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Paie Hecate's offering; and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. While I threat, he lives:

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

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Lady M. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold: What hath quench'd them, hath given me fire: - - Hark! - Peace!

It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,

Which gives the stern'st good-night. He is about it:

The doors are open; and the suspected grooms

Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets, That death and nature do contend about them,

Whether they live or die.

Macbeth (within). Who's there? — what ho!

Lady M. Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd, And 'tis not done: - - the attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us: - Hark! - I laid their daggers ready, He could not miss them. Had he not resembled

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My father as he slept, I had done 't. My husband?

Enter Macbeth.

he

Macb. I have done the deed: - Did'st thou not hear a noise?
Lady M.
I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.

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Lady M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, murder !

That they did wake each other; I stood and heard them:

But they did say their prayers, and address'd them

Again to sleep.

Lady M. There are two lodg'd together.

Macb. One cried, God bless us! and Amen, the other; As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands,

Listening their fear. I could not say, amen,

When they did say, God bless us.

Lady M.

Consider it not so deeply.

Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce amen?

I had most need of blessing, and amen

Stuck in my throat.

Lady M.

These deeds must not be thought

After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

Macb. Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!

Macbeth doth murder sleep, the innocent_sleep;

Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.

Lady M.

What do you mean?

Macb. Still it cried, Sleep no more! to all the house.

Glamis hath murder'd sleep; and therefore Cawdor

Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!

Lady M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, You do unbend your noble strength, to think

So brainsickly of things: - Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.-
Why did you bring these daggers from their 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 M.

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.

Macb.

(Exit. - Knocking within.)

Whence is that knocking?

How is 't with me, when every noise appals me?

What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous sea incarnadine,

Making the green -one red.

Re-enter Lady Macbeth.

Lady M. My hands are of your color; but I shame

To wear a heart so white. — (Knock.) 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. — (Knocking.) Hark, more knocking: Get on your night-gown, lest occasion call us,

And show us to be watchless :

So poorly in your thoughts.

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Macb. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.

(Knock.)

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay, 'would thou couldst !

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE. (1571.)
Jean Ingelow.

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers rang by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,

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Men say it was a stolen tyde

The Lord that sent it, He knows all;

But in myne ears doth still abide

The message that the bells let fall:
And there was nought of strange, beside
The flight of mews and peewits pied

By millions crouched on the old sea-wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,

My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes;
The level sun, like ruddy ore,

Lay sinking in the barren skies,
And dark against day's golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My sonne's faire wife, Elizabeth.

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Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;

Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;

Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,
From the clovers lift your head;

Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,
Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,

Jetty, to the milking shed."

If it be long, ay, long ago,

When I beginne to think howe long,

Againe I hear the Lindis flow,

Swift as an arrowe, sharp and strong;

And all the aire, it seemeth mee,

Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee),
That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,

And not a shadowe mote be seene, Save where full fyve good miles away

The steeple towered from out the greene, And lo! the great bell farre and wide Was heard in all the country side That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where their sedges are
Moved on in sunset's golden breath,
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;

Till floating o'er the grassy sea
Came downe that kindly message free,

The "Brides of Mavis Enderby."

Then some looked uppe into the sky,

And all along where Lindis flows

To where the goodly vessels lie,

And where the lordly steeple shows.

They sayde, "And why should this thing be?

What danger lowers by land or sea?

They ring the tune of Enderby!

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