And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, Great Cæsar fell. Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen! 2d Citizen. O noble Cæsar! 3d Citizen. We will be revenged! Revenge! about,Seek, burn, fire, — kill, — slay! - let not a trai tor live. Antony. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honorable, I came not, friends, to steal away your hearts; I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, That loves my friend; and that they know full well I tell you that which you yourselves do know ; mouths, And bid them speak for me. And were I Brutus, SHAKESPEARE. From" Julius Cæsar." A DAY IN JUNE AND what is so rare as a day in June? And over it softly her warm ear lays: An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And groping blindly above it for light, Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world and she to her nestIn the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a rippling cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, "Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing — Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe SPEECH AND SILENCE 1. HE who speaks honestly cares not, needs not care, though his words be preserved to remotest time. The dishonest speaker, not he only who purposely utters falsehoods, but he who does not purposely, and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth alone; who babbles he knows not what, and has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it run racket, ejecting chatter and futility, is among the most indisputable malefactors omitted, or inserted, in the Criminal Calendar. 2. To him that will well consider it, idle speaking is precisely the beginning of all Hollowness, Halfness, Infidelity (want of Faithfulness); the genial atmosphere in which rank weeds of every kind attain the mastery over noble fruits in man's life, and utterly choke them out: one of the most crying maladies of these days, and to be testified against, and in all ways to the uttermost withstood. 3. Wise, of a wisdom far beyond our shallow depth, was that old precept: "Watch thy tongue; out of it are the issues of Life!" Man is properly an incarnated word: the word that he speaks is the man himself. Were eyes put into our head, that we might see, or that we might fancy, and plausibly pretend, we had seen? Was the tongue suspended there, that |