That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound,
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere
In obstinate condolement, is a course
Of impious stubborness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient :
An understanding simple and unschooled:
For what, we know, must be; and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fye! 'tis a fault to heaven.
We pray you, throw to earth

This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam. King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply; Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come; This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell; Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, LORDS, &c. Ham. Oh, that this too-too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! God! O! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fye on't! Oh, Fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed: things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two;
So excellent a King; that was to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't :-Frailty, thy name is woman!-
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—

O heaven! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourned longer,-married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules:

It is not, nor it can not come to good;

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.

LONGFELLOW.

Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;
The smith a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands,

And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black and long;
His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn 'till night, You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door-
They love to see the flaming forge
And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits amongst his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach;
He hears his daughter's voice

Singing in the village choir

And it makes his heart rejoice;

It sounds to him like her mother's voice
Singing in paradise;

He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies,

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear from out his eyes.

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begun,

Each evening sees its close; Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught;
Thus, at the flaming forge of Life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed, each thought.

MURDER OF KING DUNCAN.

SHAKESPEARE.

Macbeth. Is this a dagger which I see before me, 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 this 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 Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder, Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, toward his designs
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. Whil'st I threat, he lives; Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. [A

bell rings.

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.

[Exit.

Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold:

What hath quenched them, hath given me fire.Hark! peace!

It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,

Which gives the sternest good-night. He is about it, The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms

Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugged 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 awaked, 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 My father as he slept, I had don't.-My husband! Enter MACBETH.

Macb. I've done the deed!-didst thou not hear a noise?