Ham.

Now, mother; what's the matter?

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?

Hcm.

What's the matter now?

Queen. Have you forgot me?

Ham.

No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;

And, would it were not so!-you are my mother.

Queen. Nay, then, I'll send those to you that can speak. Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;

You go not, till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt nót murder me?

Help, help, ho!

Ham. Leave wringing of your hands: Peace, sit you down, And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so,

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?

Such an act

Ham.
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; and takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow,
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,

With tristful visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen.

Ah me! what act,

That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this!
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:

Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man:

This was your husband. —Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love: for, at your age,

The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else, could you not have motion: But sure, that sense

Is appoplex'd: for madness would not err;

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,

But it reserv'd some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy, blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardor gives the charge:
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

Queen.

O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

A murderer, and a villain:

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord:—a vice of king's:
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!

Ham.

Of shreds and patches:

(Enter GHOST.)

A king

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards!—What would your gracious figure?

Queen. Alas! he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, laps'd in fume and passion, lets go by

The important acting of your dread command?
O, say.

Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look! amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is 't with you?

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,

Would make them capable.-Do not look upon me;

Lest, with this piteous action, you convert

My stern effects: then what I have to do

Will want true color; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham.

Do you see nothing there? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen.

No, nothing but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:

This bodiless creation, ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music; It is not madness,
That I have uttered: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.

Confess yourself to heaven;

Repent what's past: avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg:

Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good.

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Him.
O throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

J. Rodrian race

When Freedom from her mountain height

Unfurl'd her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She call'd her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest trumpings loud
And see the lightning lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storın,

And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven-
Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,

The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on;
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimm'd the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn;
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
And when the cannon-mouthings loud

Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; When death, careering on the gale, Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack,

Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free hearts' hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given,

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.