Easy as told in an English tale, To fashion a Frankenstein, body and soul, And breathe in his bosom a breath of life,-- But O, we create what we cannot control. Easy to drift to the sea of doubt, Easy to hurt what we cannot heal, Easy to rouse what we cannot soothe, Easy to speak what we do not feel, Easy to show what we ought to conceal, Easy to think that fancy is fate,-- And O, the wisdom that comes too late! OLIVER HUCKEL. * * * * * FRANKFORD'S SOLILOQUY. FROM "A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS" O God! O God! that it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday! That time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours! Or that the sun Could, rising from the West, draw his coach backward,-- Take from the account of time so many minutes. Till he had all these seasons called again, These minutes and these actions done in them. THOMAS HEYWOOD. * * * * * CONSCIENCE. FROM SATIRE XIII. The Spartan rogue who, boldly bent on fraud, Dared ask the god to sanction and applaud, And sought for counsel at the Pythian shrine, Received for answer from the lips divine,-- "That he who doubted to restore his trust, And reasoned much, reluctant to be just, Should for those doubts and that reluctance prove The deepest vengeance of the powers above." The tale declares that not pronounced in vain Came forth the warning from the sacred fane: Ere long no branch of that devoted race Could mortal man on soil of Sparta trace! Thus but intended mischief, stayed in time, Had all the mortal guilt of finished crime. If such his fate who yet but darkly dares, Whose guilty purpose yet no act declares, What were it, done! Ah! now farewell to peace! Ne'er on this earth his soul's alarms shall cease! Held in the mouth that languid fever burns, His tasteless food he indolently turns; On Alba's oldest stock his soul shall pine! Forth from his lips he spits the joyless wine! Nor all the nectar of the hills shall now Or glad the heart, or smooth the wrinkled brow! While o'er the couch his aching limbs are cast, If care permit the brief repose at last, Lo! there the altar and the fane abused! Or darkly shadowed forth in dream confused, While the damp brow betrays the inward storm, Before him flits thy aggravated form! Then as new fears o'er all his senses press, Unwilling words the guilty truth confess! These, these be they whom secret terrors try. When muttered thunders shake the lurid sky; Whose deadly paleness now the gloom conceals And now the vivid flash anew reveals. No storm as Nature's casualty they hold. They deem without an aim no thunders rolled; Where'er the lightning strikes, the flash is thought Judicial fire, with Heaven's high vengeance fraught. Passes this by, with yet more anxious ear