What
you would hear from me of good or evil.
The secret were too mighty for your souls!

Then let it sleep in mine,-unless

you court

5 A danger which would double that you escape.
Such defence would be, had I full scope
my

To make it famous :-for true words are things;
And dying men's are things which long out-live,
And oftentimes avenge them. Bury mine,
10 If ye would fain survive me. Take this counsel;
And, though too oft ye made me live in wrath,
Let me die calmly. You may grant me this!-
I deny nothing,-defend nothing, nothing
I ask of you but silence for myself,
15 And sentence from the court!

President. Marino Faliero,* doge of Venice,
Count of Val di Marino, senator,

And sometime general of the fleet and army,
Noble Venetian, many times and oft

20 Intrusted by the state with high employments,
Even to the highest,-listen to the sentence !
Convict by many witnesses and proofs,
And by thine own confession, of the guilt
Of treachery, and treason, yet unheard of

25 Until this trial,—the decree is death!

The place wherein as doge thou shouldst be painted,
With thine illustrious predecessors, is

To be left vacant, with a death-black veil

Flung over these dim words engraved beneath,— 30"This place is of Marino Faliero,

Decapitated for his crimes."

Doge. What crimes?

Were it not better to record the facts,
So that the contemplator might approve,
35 Or at least learn whence the crimes arose ?
When the beholder knows a doge conspired,
Let him be told the cause, it is your history.

Pres. Time must reply to that. Our sons will judge Their fathers' judgment, which I now pronounce. 40 As doge, clad in the ducal robes and cap,

Thou shalt be led hence to the Giant's Staircase,
Where thou and all our princes are invested;
And there, the ducal crown being first resumed,

* Pronounced Măreeno Făleeāyro.

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Upon the spot where it was first assumed,

Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have mercy
Upon thy soul!

Doge. Is this the sentence?

President. It is.

Doge. I can endure it. And the time?

Pres. Must be immediate. Make thy peace with God,-Within an hour thou must be in His presence!

Doge. I am there already; and my blood will rise

10 Before the souls of those who shed it!

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LESSON CXLIX. THE RICH MAN'S SON, AND THE POOR MAN'S
SON.-J. R. LOWELL.

The rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold;
And he inherits soft, white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold;
Nor dares to wear a garment old:
A heritage, it seems to me,

One would not care to hold in fee:

The rich man's son inherits cares;
The bank may break, the factory burn;
Some breath may burst his bubble shares;
And soft, white hands would hardly earn
A living that would suit his turn:
A heritage, it seems to me,

One would not care to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart;
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands; he does his part,
In every useful toil and art:
A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit ?——-
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things;
A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit;
Content that from employment springs;
A heart that in his labor sings:
A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee:

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What does the poor man's son inherit ?-
A patience learned by being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,
A fellow feeling that is sure

To make the outcast bless his door:
A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

Oh! rich man's son, there is a toil
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whitens, soft, white hands:
This is the best crop from the lands:
A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being rich to hold in fee.

Oh! poor man's son, scorn not thy state;-
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
Work only makes the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign:
A heritage, it seems to me,

Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both heirs to some six feet of sod,

Are equal in the earth at last;

Both children of the same dear GOD;
Prove title to your heirship vast,

By record of a well-filled past:
A heritage, it seems to me,

Well worth a life to hold in fee.

LESSON CL.-NEW ENGLAND'S DEAD.-ISAAC M'LELLAN, JR.

"I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is; behold her, and judge for yourselves.-There is her history. The world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia; and there they will remain forever."- Webster's Speech.

NEW ENGLAND'S DEAD! New England's dead!
On every hill they lie;

On every field of strife made red

By bloody victory.

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Each valley, where the battle poured
Its red and awful tide,

Beheld the brave New England sword
With slaughter deeply dyed.

Their bones are on the northern hill,

And on the southern plain,

By brook and river, lake and rill,
And by the roaring main.

The land is holy where they fought,
And holy where they fell;

For by their blood that land was bought,
The land they loved so well.

Then glory to that valiant band,

The honored saviors of the land!

Oh! few and weak their numbers were,

A handful of brave men;

But to their God they gave their

And rushed to battle then.

prayer,

The God of battles heard their cry,
And sent to them the victory.

They left the ploughshare in the mould,
Their flocks and herds without a fold,
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn, half garnered, on the plain,
And mustered, in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress.

To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,
To perish, or o'ercome their foe.

And where are ye, O fearless men?
And where are ye to-day?

I call:-the hills reply again
That ye have passed away;

That on old Bunker's lonely height,

In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground,
The grass grows green, the harvest bright,
Above each soldier's mound.

The bugle's wild and warlike blast
Shall muster them no more;

An army now might thunder past,
And they not heed its roar.

The starry flag, 'neath which they fought,
In many a bloody day,

From their old graves shall rouse them not,
For they have passed away.

LESSON CLI.-THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS.-J. G. PERCIVAL.

Here rest the great and good,-here they repose
After their generous toil. A sacred band,
They take their sleep together, while the year
Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves,
5 And gathers them again, as winter frowns.
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre,-green sods
Are all their monument; and yet it tells
A nobler history, than pillared piles,
Or the eternal pyramids. They need

10 No statue nor inscription to reveal

Their greatness. It is round them; and the

joy

With which their children tread the hallowed ground
That holds their venerated bones, the peace

That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth

15 That clothes the land they rescued,-these, though mute As feeling ever is when deepest,—these

Are monuments more lasting, than the fanes
Reared to the kings and demigods of old.

Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade
20 Over their lowly graves; beneath their boughs
There is a solemn darkness, even at noon,
Suited to such as visit at the shrine

Of serious liberty. No factious voice
Called them unto the field of generous fame,
25 But the pure consecrated love of home.
No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes
In all its greatness. It has told itself

To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings,
At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here,
30 Where first our patriots sent the invader back

Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all
To tell us where they fought, and where they lie.
Their feelings were all nature; and they need
No art to make them known. They live in us,
35 While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold,
Worshipping nothing but our own pure hearts,