In dust

And death, where they are neither gods nor men.
Talk not of such to me! the worms are gods;
At least they banqueted upon your gods,
And died for lack of farther nutriment.

Those gods were merely men; look to their issue

I feel a thousand mortal things about me,

But nothing godlike,-unless it may be

The thing which you condemn, a disposition
To love and to be merciful, to pardon

The follies of my species, and (that's human)
To be indulgent to my own.

Sal.

Alas!

Sal. Thou art guarded by thy foes: in a few hours The tempest may break out which overwhelms thee, And thine and mine; and in another day What is shall be the past of Belus' race. Sar. What must we dread? Sal. Ambitious treachery, Which has environ'd thee with snares; but yet There is resource: empower me, with thy signet, To quell the machinations, and I lay The heads of thy chief foes before thy feet. Sar. The heads-how many? Sal. Must I stay to number When even thine own's in peril? Let me go; Give me thy signet-trust me with the rest.

Sar. I will trust no man with unlimited lives. When we take those from others, we nor know What we have taken, nor the thing we give.

Sal. Wouldst thou not take their lives who seek for thine?

Ser. That's a hard question-But I answer, Yes. Cannot the thing be done without? Who are they Whom thou suspectest?--Let them be arrested.

Sal. I would thou wouldst not ask me; the next moment

Will send my answer through thy babbling troop
Of paramours, and thence fly o'er the palace,
Even to the city, and so baffle all.-

Trust me.

Sar.

Thou knowest I have done so ever: [Gives the signet.

Take thou the signet.

Sal.

I have one more request.-

Sar. Name it.
Sal. That thon this night forbear the banquet
In the pavilion over the Euphrates.

Sar. Forbear the banquet! Not for all the plotters
That ever shook a kingdom! Let them come,
And do their worst: I shall not blench for them;
Nor rise the sooner; nor forbear the goblet;
Nor crown me with a single rose the less;
Nor lose one joyous hour.-I fear them not.

Sal. But thou wouldst arm thee, wouldst thou not, if needful?

Sar. Perhaps. I have the goodliest armour, and A sword of such a temper, and a bow

(I) "It is impossible to repress the liking which the hu mane spirit of this thought is calculated to inspire." Gall.

-P.E.

And javelin, which might furnish Nimrod forth: A little heavy, but yet not unwieldy.

And now I think on't, 'tis long since I've used them, Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother? Sal. Is this a time for such fantastic trifling?If need be, wilt thou wear them?

Will I not?

Sar.
Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves
Will not be ruled with less, I'll use the sword
Till they shall wish it turn'd into a distaff.

Sal. They say thy sceptre's turn'd to that already.
Sar. That's false! but let them say so: the old
Of whom our captives often sing, related [Greeks,
The same of their chief hero, Hercules,
Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest
The populace of all the nations seize
Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns.
Sal. They did not speak thus of thy fathers.
Sar.

No;

They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat;
And never changed their chains but for their armour:
Now they have peace and pastime, and the license
To revel and to rail; it irks me not.

I would not give the smile of one fair girl
For all the popular breath that e'er divided

A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues
'Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding,
That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread
Their noisome clamour?
Sal.

You have said they are men;

As such, their hearts are something.
Sar.

So my dogs' are; (2)
And better, as more faithful:-but, proceed;
Thou hast my signet:-since they are tumultuous,
Let them be temper'd, yet not roughly, till
Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain,
Given or received; we have enough within us,
The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch,
Not to add to each other's natural burthen
Of mortal misery, but rather lessen,
By mild reciprocal alleviation,

The fatal penalties imposed on life:

But this they know not, or they will not know.

I have, by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:

I made no wars, I added no new imposts,

I interfered not with their civic lives,

I let them pass their days as best might suit them,
Passing my own as suited me.

Sal.
Thou stopp'st
Short of the duties of a king; and therefore
They say thou art unfit to be a monarch.

Sar. They lie.-Unhappily, I am unfit
To be aught save a monarch; else for me
The meanest Mede might be the king instead.

Sal. There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so.
Sar. What mean'st thou?-'tis thy secret; thou

desirest

Few questions, and I'm not of curious nature.
Take the fit steps; and, since necessity
Requires, I sanction and support thee. Ne'er
Was man who more desired to rule in peace
The peaceful only if they rouse me, better
They had conjured up stern Nimrod from his ashes,
"The mighty hunter." I will turn these realms
To one wide desert chase of brutes, who were,

(2) See MISCELLANEOUS POEMSs: Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog.

Sar. (solus.)

I will not pause to answer

Farewell!

[Exit SALEMENES. Farewell!

He is gone; and on his finger bears my signet,
Which is to him a sceptre. He is stern
As I am heedless; and the slaves deserve
To feel a master. What may be the danger,
I know not he hath found it, let him quell it.
Must I consume my life-this little life-
In guarding against all may make it less? (1)
It is not worth so much! It were to die
Before my hour, to live in dread of death,
Tracing revolt; suspecting all about me,
Because they are near; and all who are remote,
Because they are far. But if it should be so-
If they should sweep me off from earth and empire,
Why, what is earth or empire of the earth?

I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image;
To die is no less natural than those
Acts of this clay! 'Tis true I have not shed
Blood as I might have done, in oceans, till
My name became the synonyme of death-
A terror and a trophy. But for this
I feel no penitence; my life is love:
If I must shed blood, it shall be by force.
Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein
Hath flow'd for me, nor hath the smallest coin
Of Nineveh's vast treasures e'er been lavish'd
On objects which could cost her sons a tear:
If then they hate me, 'tis because I hate not:
If they rebel, 'tis because I oppress not.
Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres,
And mow'd down like the grass, else all we reap
Is rank abundance, and a rotten harvest

Of discontents infecting the fair soil,

Making a desert of fertility.

I'll think no more.

Sar.

-Within there, ho!

For ever thus, address'd with awe. I ne'er
Can see a smile, unless in some broad banquet's
Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons
Have gorged themselves up to equality,

Or I have quaff'd me down to their abasement.
Myrrha, I can hear all these things, these names,
Lord-king-sire-monarch-nay, time was I prized
them;

That is, I suffer'd them-from slaves and nobles;
But when they falter from the lips I love,
The lips which have been press'd to mine, a chill
Comes o'er my heart, a cold sense of the falsehood
Of this my station, which represses feeling
In those for whom I have felt most, and makes me
Wish that I could lay down the dull tiara,
And share a cottage on the Caucasus
With thee, and wear no crowns but those of flowers
Myr. Would that we could!

Enter an ATTENDANT.

Slave, tell

In peril.

The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her presence.

Attend. King, she is here.

Sar. What! am I then coop'd? Already captive? can I not even breathe The breath of heaven? Tell prince Salemenes, Were all Assyria raging round the walls In mutinous myriads, I would still go forth. Pan. I must obey, and yetMyr. O monarch! listen.-How many a day and moon thou hast reclined Within these palace walls in silken dalliance, And never shown thee to thy people's longing; Leaving thy subjects' eyes ungratified, The satraps uncontroll'd, the gods unworshipp'd, And all things in the anarchy of sloth, Till all, save evil, slumber'd through the realm! And wilt thou not now tarry for a day,— A day which may redeem thee? Wilt thou not Yield to the few still faithful a few hours, For them, for thee, for thy past fathers' race, And for thy sons' inheritance?

Of all thy faithful subjects, who will rally
Round thee and thine!

Sar.
These are mere fantasies;
There is no peril:-'tis a sullen scheme
Of Salemenes, to approve his zeal,
And show himself more necessary to us.

Myr. By all that's good and glorious, take this counsel.

Sar. Business to-morrow.
Myr.

Ay, or death to-night.
Sar. Why let it come then unexpectedly,
'Midst joy and gentleness, and mirth and love;
So let me fall like the pluck'd rose!-far better
Thus, than be wither'd.

Myr.

Then thou wilt not yield, Even for the sake of all that ever stirr'd

A monarch into action, to forego

A trifling revel?

Sar. Suspect!-that's a spy's office. Oh! we lose
Ten thousand precious moments in vain words,
And vainer fears. Within there!-ye slaves, deck
The hall of Nimrod for the evening revel:
If I must make a prison of our palace,
At least we'll wear our fetters jocundly;
If the Euphrates be forbid us, and
The summer dwelling on its beauteous border,
Here we are still unmenaced. Ho! within there!
[Exit SARDANAPALUS,
Myr. (sola.) Why do I love this man? My cour-
try's daughters

Love none but heroes. But I have no country!
The slave bath lost all save her bonds. I love him;
And that's the heaviest link of the long chain-
To love whom we esteem not. Be it so:
The hour is coming when he'll need all love,
And find none.
To fall from him now were baser
Than to have stabb'd him on his throne when highest
Would have been noble in my country's creed:

I was not made for either. Could I save him,
I should not love him better, but myself;
And I have need of the last, for I have fallen
In my own thoughts, by loving this soft stranger:
And yet methinks I love him more, perceiving
That he is hated of his own barbarians,

The natural foes of all the blood of Greece.
Could I but wake a single thought like those
Which even the Phrygians felt when battling long
"Twixt Ilion and the sea, within his heart,
He would tread down the barbarous crowds, and triumph.
He loves me, and I love him; the slave loves
Her master, and would free him from his vices.
If not, I have a means of freedom still,
And if I cannot teach him how to reign,
May show him how alone a king can leave
His throne. I must not lose him from my sight.
Exit 1

ACT II. SCENE I.

The portal of the same Hall of the Palace. Beleses (solus). The sun goes down: methinks be

sets more slowly,

Taking his last look of Assyria's empire.
How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds,

feeling of the loveliness of woman-his power, not only of picturing individual forms, but of infusing into the very atmosphere which surrounds them the spirit of beauty and of love. A soft roseate light is spread over them, which

Like the blood he predicts. If not in vain,
Thou sun that sinkest and ye stars which rise,
I have outwatch'd ye, reading ray by ray

The edicts of your orbs, which make Time tremble
For what he brings the nations, 'tis the furthest
Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm!
An earthquake should announce so great a fall-
A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk,

To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon
Its everlasting page the end of what

Seem'd everlasting; but oh! thou true sun!

The burning oracle of all that live,

As fountain of all life, and symbol of

Him who bestows it, wherefore dost thou limit

Thy lore unto calamity? Why not
Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine
All-glorious burst from ocean? why not dart
A beam of hope athwart the future's years,

As of wrath to its days? Hear me! oh, hear me !
I am thy worshipper, thy priest, thy servant-
I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall,
And bow'd my head beneath thy mid-day beams,
When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watch'd
For thee, and after thee, and pray'd to thee,
And sacrificed to thee, and read, and fear'd thee,
And ask'd of thee, and thou hast answer'd-but
Only to thus much: while I speak, he sinks-

Is gone-and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge,
To the delighted west, which revels in
Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is
Death, so it be but glorious? 'Tis a sunset;
And mortals may be happy to resemble
The gods but in decay.

Enter ARBACES, by an inner door.
Arb.
Beleses, why
So rapt in thy devotions? Dost thou stand
Gazing to trace thy disappearing god
lato some realm of undiscover'd day?
Our business is with night-'tis come.
Bel.

Gone.

Arb. Let it roll on-we are ready. Bel.

Would it were over!

Arb.

But not

Yes.

Does the prophet doubt,

To whom the very stars shine victory?

Bel. I do not doubt of victory-but the victor. Arb. Well, let thy science settle that. Meantime I have prepared as many glittering spears As will out-sparkle our allies-your planets. There is no more to thwart us. The she-king, That less than woman, is even now upon The waters with his female mates. The order Is issued for the feast in the pavilion. The first cup which he drains will be the last Quaff'd by the line of Nimrod.

Bel.

Bel.

"Tis thy natal ruler-thy birth-planet. Arb. (touching his scabbard.) My star is in this scabbard: when it shines,

It shall out-dazzle comets. Let us think
Of what is to be done to justify

Thy planets and their portents. When we conquer,
They shall have temples-ay, and priests—and thou
Shalt be the pontiff of what gods thou wilt;
For I observe that they are ever just,
And own the bravest for the most devout.

Bel. Ay, and the most devout for brave-thou hast Seen me turn back from battle. [not

Arb.
No; I own thee
As firm in fight as Babylonia's captain,
As skilful in Chaldea's worship: now,
Will it but please thee to forget the priest,
And be the warrior?

Bel. Arb.

Why not both?

The better;
And yet it almost shames me, we shall have
So little to effect. This woman's warfare

Degrades the very conqueror. To have pluck'd
A bold and bloody despot from his throne,
And grappled with him, clashing steel with steel,
That were heroic or to win or fall;

But to upraise my sword against this silkworm,
And hear him whine, it may be-

Bel.

Do not deem it;

But

seems to sink into the soul. The other faculty to which we allude is his comprehensive sympathy with the vastest objects in the material universe. There is scarcely any pure description of individual scenes in all his works; but the Doblest allusions to the grandeurs of earth and heaven. He

pays no 'allegiance but to the elements.' The moon, the stars, the ocean, the mountain desert, are endowed by him with new 'speech and language,' and send to the heart their mighty voices. He can interpret between us and the firmament, or give us all the sentiment of an everlasting solitude," Anon.—L, E.