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But, as they slumbered in their mother's lap,
How mournful was their beauty! She would sit,
And look and weep, and look and weep again;
For Nature had but half her work achieved,
Denying, like a step-dame, to the babes
Her noblest gifts; denying speech to one,
And to the other

But at length

reason.

II.

(Seven years gone by, seven melancholy years)
Another came, as fair, and fairer still;

And then, how anxiously the mother watched
Till reason dawned and speech declared itself!
Reason and speech were his; and down she knelt,
Clasping her hands in silent ecstasy.

III.

On the hillside, where still the cottage stands,
On the hillside, among the cataracts,

In happy ignorance the children played;
Alike unconscious, through their cloudless day,
Of what they had and had not; everywhere
Gathering rock-flowers; or, with their utmost might,
Loosening the fragment from the precipice,
And, as it tumbled, listening for the plunge;
Yet, as by instinct, at the 'customed hour
Returning; the two eldest, step by step,
Lifting along, and with the tenderest care,
Their infant brother.

IV.

Once the hour was past;

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And, when the mother sought, she could not find;
And when she found Where was the little one?
Alas! they answered not; yet still she asked,
Still in her grief forgetting.

With a scream,

V.

Such as an eagle sends forth when he soars,

A scream that through the wild scatters dismay,—

The idiot boy looked up into the sky,

And leaped and laughed aloud, and leaped again ;

As if he wished to follow in its flight

Something just gone, and gone from earth to heaven;

VI.

And he, whose every gesture, every look

Went to the heart, for from the heart it came,
He who nor spoke nor heard, (all things to him,
Day after day, as silent as the grave,)

Fled to her mantle as for refuge there,

And, as at once o'ercome with fear and grief,
Covered his head and wept.

VII.

A dreadful thought
Flashed through her brain.
Thirsting to dip his beak in

"Has not some bird of prey,
innocent blood

It must, it must be so!". And so it was!
There was an Eagle that had long acquired
Absolute sway, the lord of a domain
Savage, sublime; nor from the hills alone
Gathering large tribute, but from every vale;
Making the ewe, whene'er he deigned to stoop,
Bleat for the lamb.

VIII.

Great was the recompense

Assured to him who laid the tyrant low;
And, near his nest, in that eventful hour,
Calmly and patiently a hunter stood,
A hunter, as it chanced, of high renown,
And father of those children.

In the south

IX.

A speck appeared, enlarging; and erclong,
As on his journey to the golden sun,

Upward he came, the Felon in his flight,
Ascending through the congregated clouds,
That, like a dark and troubled sea, obscured
The world beneath.
“But what is in his grasp?
Ha! 't is a child -

and may it not be ours?

I dare not, cannot; and yet why forbear,
When, if it lives, a cruel death awaits it? —

May He who winged the shaft when Tell stood forth,
And shot the apple from the youngling's head,
Grant me the strength, the courage!"— As he spoke,
He aimed, he fired; and at his feet they fell,

The Eagle and the child, the child unhurt,

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Though, such the grasp, not even in death relinquished.

LXVIII. OUR DEBT TO SOCIETY.

FICHTE.

See in Index, GLORIOUS, IDEA, POSSESS, TOWARD, FICHTE. See remarks, §§ 49, 51, on the argumentative style, &c.

1. EACH of us is bound to make use of his culture for the advantage of society. No one has a right to labor only for his own enjoyment, to shut himself up from his fellow-men, and make his culture useless to them; for it is only by the labor of society that he has been placed in a position wherein he could acquire that culture: it is in a certain sense a product, a property of society; and he robs society of a property which belongs to it, if he does not apply his culture to its use.

2. It is the duty of every one, not only to endeavor to make himself useful to society generally, but also to direct all his efforts, according to the best knowledge which he possesses, toward the ultimate object of society, toward the ever-increasing ennoblement of the human race.

3. When we contem'plate the idea now unfolded, even without reference to ourselves, we see around us a community in which no one can labor for himself without at the same time laboring for his fellow-men, or can labor for others without at the same time labor

ing for himself; where the success of one member is the success of all, and the loss of one a loss to all: a picture which, by the harmony it reveals in the manifold diversity of being, introduces a cordial feeling of satisfaction to the mind, and powerfully raises the soul above the things of time.

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4. But the interest is heightened when we turn our thoughts to ourselves, and contemplate ourselves as members of this great spiritual community. The feeling of our dignity and our power is increased when we say, what each of us may say, "My existence is not in vain and aimless; I am a necessary link in the great chain of being which reaches from the awakening of the first man to perfect consciousness of his existence, onward through eternity.

5. "All the great and wise and noble that have ever appeared among men, those benefactors of the human race whose names I find recorded in the world's history, and the many others whose benefits have outlived their names, all have labored for me; I have entered into their labors; I follow their footsteps on this earth where they dwelt, where they scattered blessings as they went along.

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6. "I may, as soon as I will, assume the sublime task which they have resigned, of making our common brotherhood ever wiser and happier; I may continue to build where they had to cease their labors; I may bring nearer to its completion the glorious temple which they had to leave unfinished."

7. "But," some one may say, "I too, like them, must rest from my labors." O, this is the sublimest thought of all! If I assume this noble task, I can never reach its end; and so surely as it is my vocation to assume it, I can never cease to act, and hence can never cease to be.

8. That which men call Death cannot interrupt my activity; for my work must go on to its completion,

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and it cannot be completed in Time; — hence my existence is limited by no Time, and I am Eternal: with the assumption of this great task, I have also laid hold of Eternity!

LXIX.

HYMN

BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

COLERIDGE.

Pronounce CHAMOUNI, shah'moo-ny, ARVÉ, ar'vay, ARVEIRON, ar-vayꞌron, AVALANCHE, av'a-lansh, HIERARCH, hi'e-rark.

See in Index, RAVINE, TRAVELING or TRAVELLING, COLERIDGE.

Delivery. The style of this celebrated poem is meditative and devout; and admiration mingled with awe should be the prevailing expression. It should have the middle pitch, slow time, and a pure quality of voice, expanding in the more animated passages to an earnest orotund. In the last stanza the rising inflection should be chiefly used, and in parts the continuative or parenthetic tone. See § 31. At Blanc (third line of first stanza) give the rising inflection.

I.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course?· so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful front, O sovereign Blanc !
The Arvé 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

II.

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.

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