صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!

He shudders-gasps-Jove help him-so, he's dead!"
11. How like a mountain devil in the heart

Rules this unreined ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the desert for the spirit's lip,

We look upon our splendor, and forget
The thirst of which we perish!

LVII. THE SEMINOLE'S DEFIANCE.

G. W. PATTEN. 1. BLAZE, with your serried columns! I will not bend the knee; The shackle ne'er again shall bind the arm which now is free! I've mailed it with the thunder, when the tempest muttered low; And where it falls, ye well may dread the lightning of its blow. I've scared you in the city: I've scalped you on the plain : Go, count your chosen where they fell beneath my leaden rain! I scorn your proffered treaty: the pale-face I defy:

Revenge is stamped upon my spear, and "blood" my battle-cry!

2. Some strike for hope of booty; some to defend their all :— I battle for the joy I have to see the white man fall.

I love, among the wounded, to hear his dying moan,

And catch, while chanting at his side, the music of his groan.
Ye've trailed me through the forest: ye've tracked me o'er the stream;
And struggling through the everglade your bristling bayonets gleam.
But I stand as should the warrior, with his rifle and his spear:
The scalp of vengeance still is red, and warns you-" Come not here!"

3. Think ye to find my homestead?—I gave it to the fire.

My tawny household do ye seek ?—I am a childless sire.

But, should ye crave life's nourishment, enough I have, and good:
I live on hate-'tis all my bread; yet light is not my food.
I loathe you with my bosom! I scorn you with mine eye!
And I'll taunt you with my latest breath, and fight you till I die!
I ne'er will ask for quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave;
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter till I sink beneath the wave!

LVIII.-UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE, MAY 20, 1850.

VICTOR HUGO.

1. UNIVERSAL suffrage!-what is it but the overthrow of violence and brute force-the end of the material and the beginning of the moral fact? What was the Revolution of February intended to establish in France, if not this? And now it is proposed to abolish this sacred right! And what is its abolition, but the reïntroduction of the right of insurrection? Ye Ministers and men of State, who govern, wherefore do you venture on this mad attempt? I will tell you. It is because the People have deemed worthy of their votes men whom you judge worthy of your insults! It is because the People have presumed to compare your promises with your acts; because they do not find your Administration altogether sublime; because they have dared peaceably to instruct you through the ballot-box!

2. Therefore it is, that your anger is roused, and that, under the pretence that Society is in peril, you seek to chastise the People,-to take them in hand! And so, like that maniac of whom History tells, you beat the ocean with rods! And so you launch at us your poor little laws, furious but feeble! And so you defy the spirit of the age, defy the good sense of the public, defy the Democracy, and tear your unfortunate finger-nails against the granite of universal suffrage!

Go on, Gentlemen! Proceed! Disfranchise, if you will, three millions of voters, four millions, nay, eight millions out of nine! Get rid of all these! It will not matter. What you cannot get rid of is your own fatal. incapacity and ignorance; your own antipathy for the mind, which was named John Huss, and which did not die on the funeral-pile of Constance; which was named Luther, and shook orthodoxy to its centre; which was named Voltaire, and shook faith; which was named Mirabeau, and shook royalty.

3. It is the human mind, which, since history began,

has transformed societies and governments according to a law progressively acceptable to the reason,-which has been theocracy, aristocracy, monarchy, and which is to-day democracy. It is the human mind, which has been Babylon, Tyre, Jerusalem, Athens, and which to-day is Paris; which has been, turn by turn, and sometimes all at once, error, illusion, schism, protestation, truth; it is the human mind, which is the great pastor of the generations, and which, in short, has always marched towards the Just, the Beautiful, and the True, enlightening multitudes, elevating life, raising more and more the head of the People to-' wards the Right, and the head of the individual towards God!

4. And now I address myself to the alarm party,-not in this Chamber, but wherever they may be, throughout Europe, and I say to them: "Consider well what you would do; reflect on the task that you have undertaken; and measure it well before you commence. Suppose you should succeed: when you have destroyed the Press, there will remain something more to destroy,-Paris! When you have destroyed Paris, there will remain France. When you have destroyed France, there will remain the human mind." I repeat it, let this great European alarm party measure the immensity of the task which, in their heroism, they would attempt. Though they annihilate the Press to the last journal, Paris to the last pavement, France to the last hamlet, they will have done nothing. There will remain yet for them to destroy something always paramount, above the generations, and, as it were, between man and his Maker ;-something that has written all the books, invented all the arts, discovered all the worlds, founded all the civilizations ;-something which will always grasp, under the form of Revolutions, what is not yielded under the form of progress;-something which is itself unseizable as the light, and unapproachable as the sun, and which calls itself the human mind!

[blocks in formation]

LX.-GENERAL GRANT TO THE ARMY.-1865.

U. S. GRANT.

1. SOLDIERS of the Armies of the United States! By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger and alarm, your magnificent fighting, bravery, and endurance, you have maintained the supremacy of the Union and the Constitution, overthrown all arined opposition to the enforcement of the laws, and of the proclamations forever abolishing Slavery-the cause and pretext of the Rebellion-and opened the way to the rightful authorities, to restore order and inaugurate peace on a

permanent and enduring basis on every foot of American soil. Your marches, sieges, and battles, in distance, duration, resolution, and brilliancy of results, dim the luster of the world's past military achievements, and will be the patriot's precedent in defence of Liberty and the right in all time to come. In obedience to your country's call, you left your homes and families and volunteered in its defence.

2. Victory has crowned your valor and secured the purpose of your patriotic hearts; and with the gratitude of your countrymen and the highest honors a great and free nation can accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, conscious of having discharged the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs, and to secure to yourselves, your countrymen, and posterity the blessings of free institutions, tens of thousands of your gallant comrades have fallen and sealed the priceless legacy with their lives. The graves of these a grateful nation bedews with tears, honors their memories, and will ever cherish and support their stricken families.

LXI.-HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FOP.

SHAKSPEARE.

1. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.

But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil,
Breathless, and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reaped,
Showed like stubble-land at harvest home.

2. He was perfumed like a milliner;

And, twixt his finger and his thumb, he held

A pouncet-box, which, ever and anon,

He gave his nose. And still he smiled, and talked,

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

« السابقةمتابعة »