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INSCRIPTION.

Pizarro here was born; a greater name
The list of glory boasts not. Toil and pain,
Famine, and hostile elements, and hosts
Embattled, failed to check him in his course;
Not to be wearied, not to be deterred,
Not to be overcome. A mighty realm
He overran, and with relentless arms
Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons,

And wealth, and power, and fame, were his rewards.
There is another world, beyond the grave,
According to their deeds where men are judged,
O Reader! if thy daily bread be earned
By daily labour,-yea, however low,
However wretched be thy lot assigned,
Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God
Who made thee, that thou art not such as he

COLERIDGE

THE NIGHTINGALE.

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues.
Come, we will rest on this old, mossy bridge!
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
A balmy night! and tho' the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
"Most musical, most melancholy" Bird!
A melancholy Bird? Oh! idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.

But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pie. ced
With the resemblance of a grievous wrong,

Or slow distemper, or neglected love,

'And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself

And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain :
And many a poet echoes the conceit;
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme

When he had better far have stretched his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,

By sun or moon-light, to the influxes

Of shapes, and sounds, and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! So his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chaunt, and disburden his full soul
Of all its music!

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,

Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many Nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,
They answer and provoke each other's songs,
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug,
And one, low piping, sounds more sweet than all,
Stirring the air with such an harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leafits are but half disclosed,

You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.

A most gentle Maid,

Who dwelleth in her hospitable home

Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
(Even like a lady vowed and dedicate

To something more than Nature in the grove)
Glides thro' the pathways; she knows all their notes.
That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space,
What time the Moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath heard a pause of silence; till the Moon
Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky
With one sensation, and these wakeful Birds
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if one quick and sudden gale had swept

An hundred airy harps! And she hath watched
Many a Nightingale perch giddily,

On blos'my twig still swinging from the breeze,
And to that motion tune his wanton song
Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
And now for our dear homes.-That strain again?
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe,
Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,

And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well
The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood, (some inward pain

Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream)
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,

And he beheld the Moon, and, hushed at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropt tears,
Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!-
It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven

Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy! Once more farewell,
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends, farewell.

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