A little weeping would ease my heart;
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders the needle and thread."

With fingers weary and worn,
With eye-lids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread:
Stitch stitch! stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,

(Would that its tone could reach the rich!) She sang this "Song of the Shirt."

HOOD.

CLXXVIII.

THE DOVER CLIFF.

Edgar.

Come on, sir; here's the place ;-stand still.— How fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air,

Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!

Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,

Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy

Almost too small for sight: The murmuring

surge,

That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high:-I'll look no more; Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong.

SHAKSPEARE.

CLXXIX.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of death,

Rode the Six Hundred.

"Charge!" was the captain's cry,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs but to do and die;
Into the valley of death

Rode the Six Hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them

Cannon in front of them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well;
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell,

Rode the Six Hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed all at once in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while

All the world wondered;

Plunged in the battery smoke,
Fiercely the line they broke;
Strong was the sabre-stroke:
Making an army reel
Shaking and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not-
Not the Six Hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,
They that had struck so well,
Rode through the jaws of death,
Half a league back again,
Up from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them—
Left of Six Hundred.

Honour the brave and bold!
Long shall the tale be told,
Yea, when our babes are old-
How they rode onward.

TENNYSON.

CLXXX.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE.

Jaques.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like a pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even at the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice;

In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every-
thing.

END OF PART THIRD,

SHAKSPEARE.