Ges. We shall try. Lead forth the caitiff1.
Sar. To a dungeon?

Ges. No; into the court.

Sar. The court, my lord?

Ges. And send

To tell the headsman" to make ready. Quick!
The slave shall die! You marked the boy?

Sar. I did. He started-'tis his father.
Ges. We shall see. Away with him!
Tell. Stop!-Stay!

Ges. What would you?

Tell. Time!-a little time to call my thoughts together.
Ges. Thou shalt not have a minute.

Tell. Some one, then, to speak with.
Ges. Hence with him!

Tell. A moment! Stop!

Let me speak to the boy.

Ges. Is he thy son?

Tell. And if

He were, art thou so lost to nature as

To send me forth to die before his face?

Ges. Well, speak with him.

Now, Sarnem, mark them well.

Tell. Thou dost not know me, boy—and well for thee Thou dost not. I'm the father of a son

About thy age. Thou,

I see, wast born, like him, upon the hills;

If thou shouldst 'scape thy present thraldom, he
May chance to cross thee; if he should, I pray thee
Relate to him what has been passing here,'

And say I laid my hand upon thy head,

And said to thee,

if he were here, as thou art, Thus would I bless him. May'st thou live my boy, To see thy country free, or die for her,

As I do!

Sar. Mark! he weeps.

[ALBERT weeps

Tell. Were he my son,

He would not shed a tear.

He would remember

The cliff where he was bred, and learned to scan
A thousand fathoms' depth of nether12 air;

Where he was trained to hear the thunder talk,
And meet the lightning eye to eye; where last
We spoke together, when I told him death
Bestowed the brightest gem that graces life,
Embraced for virtue's sake. He shed a tear!
No; were he by, I'd talk to him, and his cheek
Should never blanch, nor moisture dim his eye, —
I'd talk to him-

Sar. He falters!

Tell. "Tis too much!

And yet it must be done! I'd talk to him

Ges. Of what?

Tell. The mother, tyrant, thou dost make

A widow of. I'd talk to him of her.

I'd bid him tell her, next to liberty,

Her name was the last word my lips pronounced.
And I would charge him never to forget

To love and cherish her, as he would have

His father's dying blessing rest upon him.

Sar. You see, as he doth prompt, the other acts.

Tell. [Aside.] So well he bears it, he doth vanquish me.

My boy my boy! O, for the hills, the hills

To see him bound along their tops again,

With liberty.

Sar. Was there not all the father in that look?

Ges. Yet 'tis 'gainst nature.

Sar. Not if he believes

To own the son would be to make him share

The father's death.

Ges. I did not think of that! [TO TELL.] 'Tis well The boy is not thy son. I've destined him

To die along with thee.

Tell. To die? For what?

Ges. For having braved my power, as thou hast. Lead Them forth.

Tell. He's but a child.

Ges. Away with them!

Tell. Perhaps an only child.

Ges. No matter.

Tell. He may have a mother.

Ges. So the viper hath;

And yet, who spares it for the mother's sake?
Tell. I talk to stone. I talk to it as though
"Twere flesh; and know 'tis none. I'll talk to it
No more.
Come, my boy!

I taught thee how to live

1 Ü-ŞÜRP'ER. One who seizes that to
which he has no right.

2 COME'LI-NESS. Grace; beauty.
• CON'SCIOUS-NESS. The perception
of one's own thoughts and feelings.
4 XV'A-LÄNCHE. A vast body of snow,
ice, or earth sliding down the side
of a mountain.

I'll show thee how to die.

6 VENGEANCE. Punishment in re-
taliation for an injury.

7 FLEDGLING. A young bird.
8 REC-OG-NITION. Act of knowing
again; acknowledgment.

9 PRE-CON-CERT'ED. Arranged be
forehand.

10 CAI'TIFF. A villain; a knave.

• VÖÛCH-SAFE'. Condescend to grant 11 HEADŞ'MAN. One who beheads.

or permit.

12 NETH'ER. Lower.

XII.—THE BELL OF THE ATLANTIC.

MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

[Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney was an American lady, who wrote a variety of works in prose and verse. She was born September 1, 1791, and died June 10, 1865. She resided for many years in Hartford, Connecticut.

The steamboat Atlantic, plying between Norwich, in Connecticut, and New York, was wrecked on an island near New London. Many of the passengers were on their way to join in the celebration of the annual Thanksgiving in New England. The bell of this boat, supported by a portion of the wreck, continued for many days and nights to toll as if in mournful requlem of the lost.]

1. TOLL, toll, toll,

Thou bell by billows swung;

And, night and day, thy warning words
Repeat with mournful tongue!

Toll for the queenly boat,
Wrecked on yon rocky shore!
Sea-weed is in her palace halls;
She rides the surge no more.

2. Toll for the master bold,

The high-souled and the brave, Who ruled her like a thing of life Amid the crested wave!

Toll for the hardy crew,

Sons of the storm and blast, Who long the tyrant ocean dared; But it vanquished them at last.

3. Toll for the man of God,

Whose hallowed voice of prayer
Rose calm above the stifled groan
Of that intense despair!
How precious were those tones
On that sad verge of life,

Amid the fierce and freezing storm,
And the mountain billows' strife!

4. Toll for the lover lost

To the summoned bridal train!
Bright glows a picture on his breast,
Beneath th' unfathomed main.
One from her casement gazeth
Long o'er the misty sea:
He cometh not, pale maiden
His heart is cold to thee.

5. Toll for the absent sire,

Who to his home drew near,
To bless a glad expecting group—
Fond wife and children dear!

They heap the blazing hearth;
The festal board is spread;

But a fearful guest is at the gate:
Room for the pallid dead!

6. Toll for the loved and fair,

The whelmed beneath the tide-
The broken harps around whose strings
The dull sea-monsters glide!
Mother and nursling sweet,

Reft' from the household throng;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breathed their soul of song.

7. Toll for the hearts that bleed

'Neath misery's furrowing trace!
Toll for the hapless orphan left,

The last of all his race!
Yea, with thy heaviest knell,
From surge to rocky shore,
Toll for the living, - not the dead,
Whose mortal woes are o'er!

8. Toll, toll, toll,

O'er breeze and billow free,

2

And with thy startling lore instruct

Each rover of the sea:

Tell how o'er proudest joys

May swift destruction sweep,

And bid him build his hopes on high

Lone teacher of the deep.

1 REFT Taken away by violence. | 2 LŌRE. Instruction; discipline.