Puslapio vaizdai
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the dictatorship, and restored the monarchy. The sword effected both. Cromwell made one revolution; and Monk another. And what did the people of England gain by it? Nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing! The rights and liberties of Englishmen, as they now exist, were settled and established at the revolution in 1688. Now, mark the difference! By whom was that revolution begun and conducted ? Was it by soldiers? by military genius? by the sword? No! It was the work of statesmen and of eminent lawyers,-men never distinguished for military exploits. The faculty-the dormant faculty-may have existed. That is what no one can affirm or deny. But it would have been thought an absurd and extravagant thing to propose, in reliance upon this possible dormant faculty, that one of those eminent statesmen and lawyers should be sent, instead of the Duke of Marlborough, to command the English forces on the continent.

Who achieved the freedom and the independence of this our own country? Washington effected much in the field; but where were the Franklins, the Adamses, the Hancocks, the Jeffersons, and the Lees,-the band of sages and patriots, whose memory we revere? They were assembled in council. The heart of the revolution beat in the Hall of Congress. There was the power which, beginning with appeals to the king and the British nation, at length made an irresistible appeal to the world, and consummated the revolution by the Declaration of Independence, which Washington established with their authority, and, bearing their commission, supported by arms. And what has this band of patriots, of

sages, and of statesmen, given to us? Not what Cæsar gave to Rome; not what Cromwell gave to England, or Napoleon to France: they established for us the great principles of civil, political, and religious liberty, upon the strong foundations on which they have hitherto stood. There may have been military capacity in Congress; but can any one deny that it is to the wisdom of sages, Washington being one, we are indebted for the signal blessings we enjoy ?

2. CHAMOUNY.-S. T. Coleridge, B. 1770; d. 1834.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his deep course ?-so long he seems to pause
On thy bold, awful front, O sovereign Blanc;
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines

How silently! Around thee and above,
Deep is the air, and dark; substantial black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity.

O dread and silent mount!

I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,

Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy,

Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!
Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise
Thou owest; not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and silent ecstasy. Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake;
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou, first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
O! struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink—
Companion of the morning star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn,
Co-herald, wake! O wake! and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ?

3. CHAMOUNY.-Continued.

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered, and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ?

And who commanded,-and the silence came,"Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ?"

Ye ice-falls! ye, that, from the mountain's brow,

Adown enormous ravines slope amain,

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts !-

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows?
with rainbows? Who with living flowers
Of loveliest blue spread garlands at your feet ?-
"God!" let the torrents, like a shout of Nations,
Answer: and let the ice-plains echo, “God !”
"God!" sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And, in their perilous fall, shall thunder "God!"
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm !
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth "God!" and fill the hills with praise.

Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-
Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low,
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears--
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,

To rise before me-rise, O ever rise!

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread embassador from Earth to Heaven,

Great hierarch, tell thou the silent sky,

And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
"Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God."

4. HYMN TO THE SEASONS.-Thomson.

These, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER! these
Are but the varied GOD. The rolling year
Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, THY tenderness and love,
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.
Then comes THY glory in the summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year:
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves, in hollow whispering gales.
THY bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful THOU ! with clouds and storms.
Around THEE thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing,
Riding sublime, THOU bidst the world adore,
And humblest Nature with THY northern blast!
Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined,
Shade unperceived, so softening into shade,
And all so forming an harmonious whole,
That as they still succeed, they ravish still,

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