Should one led up to death, or fearing worse,
Those tortures that make dying a release,
Anticipate the final boon of peace
By taking on himself the murderer's curse?

If with unwavering purpose arm'd, his hand
Could let the doomed captive from his breast,
And with one purple pang reconquer rest,
Were it not Roman, Brutus-worthy, grand?

No! by my faith in God, I would not spare
My flesh one blow prophetically due,
Nor snatch a respite, nor for mercy sue,
Lest I should wrong th' Omnipotence of prayer:

Sweet brooke, in whose cleare christall I mine eyes
Haue oft seene great in labour of their teares;
Enamell'd banke, whose shining grauell beares
These sad characters of my miseries;
High woods, whose mounting tops menace the spheares;
Wild citizens, Amphions of the trees,
You gloomie groues at hottest noones which freeze,
Elysian shades which Phebus neuer cleares;
Vaste solitarie mountaines, pleasant plaines,
Embrodred meads that ocean-wayes you reach,
Hills, dales, springs, all that my sad cry constraines

Falls there no lightning from yon distant heaven
To crush this man's potential impudence?
Shall not its outraged patience thunder: “Hence!
Forsake the shrine where Liberty was given!”

Shall he stand here, with this defiant face,
And clench the fist, and shake the matted hair,
As if his brutal prowess centred there,
Mocking at Justice, in her holy place?

See where he smiles! the sophism falls so pat!
Suits better with his ends than finer stuff—
Goes furthest, with the speech assured and rough—

To heare my plaints, faire riuer christalline,
Thou in a silent slumber seemes to stay;
Delicious flowrs, lillie and columbine,
Yee bowe your heades when I my woes display;
Forrests, in you the mirtle, palme, and bay,
Haue had compassion listning to my grones;
The winds with sighes haue solemniz'd my mones
'Mong leaues, which whisper'd what they could not say;
The caues, the rockes, the hills the Syluans' thrones,
As if euen pitie did in them appeare,
Haue at my sorrowes rent their ruethlesse stones;

IN THE GRACES .

At first like an infant appearing,
With neither his bow nor his darts,
To his wiles we attend without fearing,
Till he creeps by degrees to our hearts.

When soon for our folly requited,
This guest the sole master we find,
For scarce to the bosom invited,
He lords it at will o'er the mind.

Why shouldst thou speak? stand, and lift up thy hands,
That bear, before high heaven, a nation's crime,
That touch with fire th' electric chain of truth,
Left darkly rusting in our careless Time.

Stand, with the burthen of thine ancient lot
Poising thy pliant figure, with a smile
That hath a dark and bitter memory in't
Of suffering unavenged—woe worth the while!

Stand, like the prophet's Christ, so grief-possest
That silence shall afflict us more than sound;
Express in marble passion, motionless,
The anguish of the fratricidal wound.

Louis Dixhuit
Got decidedly cold feet
When he heard that the Little Man
Had landed at Cannes.

DESIGNED FOR THE BRITISH ENCHANTERS .

Wit once, like Beauty, without art or dress,
Naked, and unadorn'd, could find success,
Till by fruition novelty destroy'd,
The nymph must find new charms to be enjoy'd.
As by his equipage the man you prize,
And ladies must have gems beside their eyes;
So fares it too with plays: in vain we write,
Unless the music and the dance invite;
Scarce Hamlet clears the charges of the night.
Would you but fix some standard how to move,
We would transform to any thing you love:

IN THE BY-STANDER .

Look fairly all the world around,
And, as you truth deliver,
Tell me what character is found
A real favoir vivie?

Who truly merits sober fame —
To find you need not wander,
None can detect life's fraudful game
So well as the By-stander.3

II

The lover cogs, and palms, and slips,
The easy fair to buffle,

Of old ye warr'd on men: to-day
On women and on babes ye war;
The noble's child his head must lay
Beneath the peasant's roof no more!

I saw in sleep the infant's hand
His foster-brother's fiercely grasp;
His warm arm, lithe as willow wand,
Twines me each day with closer clasp!

O infant smiler! grief beguiler!
Between the oppressor and the oppress'd,
O soft unconscious reconciler,
Smile on through thee the land is bless'd.

Through thee the puissant love the poor;
His conqueror's hope the vanquish'd shares: