Part 15 (2/2)
”Is it askin' ye are, phwat's makin' me croiy?”
Said Dinny, ”Oi'll spake as Oi'm bid, Oi'm croiyin' bekase Mr. Michael McGlynn, Didn't doi when his grandfather did.”
ZEn.o.bIA'S DEFENCE.
BY WILLIAM WARE.
[Zen.o.bia became Queen of Palmyra A. D. 267, after the murder of her husband, Odenatus. She was a woman of great energy and a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Queen of the East. She was deprived of her dominion by Aurelian A.
D. 272, and died in retirement near Rome.]
I am charged with pride and ambition. The charge is true, and I glory in its truth. Whoever achieved anything great in letters, arts, or arms, who was not ambitious? Caesar was not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in another way. All greatness is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a n.o.ble one, and who shall blame it? I confess I did once aspire to be queen, not only of Palmyra, but of the East. That I am. I now aspire to remain so. Is it not an honorable ambition? Does it not become a descendant of the Ptolemies and of Cleopatra? I am applauded by you all for what I have already done. You would not it should have been less.
But why pause here? Is _so_ much ambition praiseworthy, and _more_ criminal? Is it fixed in nature that the limits of this empire should be Egypt on the one hand, the h.e.l.lespont and the Euxine on the other? Were not Suez and Armenia more natural limits? Or hath empire no natural limit, but is broad as the genius that can devise, and the power that can win? Rome has the West. Let Palmyra possess the East. Not that nature prescribes this and no more. The G.o.ds prospering, I mean that the Mediterranean shall not hem me in upon the west, or Persia on the east. Longinus is right,--I would that the world were mine. I feel, within, the will and the power to bless it, were it so.
Are not my people happy? I look upon the past and the present, upon my nearer and remoter subjects, and ask, nor fear the answer, Whom have I wronged? What province have I oppressed, what city pillaged, what region drained with taxes? Whose life have I unjustly taken, or whose estates have I coveted or robbed? Whose honor have I wantonly a.s.sailed? Whose rights, though of the weakest and poorest, have I violated? I dwell, where I would ever dwell, in the hearts of my people. It is written in your faces, that I reign not more over you than within you. The foundation of my throne is not more power than love.
Suppose, now, my ambition should add another province to our realm. Would that be an evil? The kingdoms already bound to us by the joint acts of ourselves and the late royal Odenatus, we found discordant and at war. They are now united and at peace. One harmonious whole has grown out of hostile and sundered parts. At my hands they receive a common justice and equal benefits. The channels of their commerce have I opened, and dug them deep and sure. Prosperity and plenty are in all their borders. The streets of our capital bear testimony to the distant and various industry which here seeks its market.
This is no vain boasting: receive it not so, good friends. It is but the truth. He who traduces himself sins in the same way as he who traduces another. He who is unjust to himself, or less than just, breaks a law, as well as he who hurts his neighbor. I tell you what I am, and what I have done, that your trust for the future may not rest upon ignorant grounds. If I am more than just to myself, rebuke me. If I have over-stepped the modesty that became me, I am open to your censure, and I will bear it.
But I have spoken that you may know your queen, not only by her acts, but by her admitted principles. I tell you, then, that I am ambitious, that I crave dominion, and while I live will reign. Sprung from a line of kings, a throne is my natural seat. I love it. But I strive, too--you can bear me witness that I do--that it shall be, while I sit upon it, an honored, unpolluted seat. If I can, I will hang a yet brighter glory around it.
A SERENADE.[1]
BY THOMAS HOOD.
”Lullaby, oh, lullaby!”
Thus I heard a father cry.
”Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
The brat will never shut an eye; Hither come, some power divine!
Close his lids or open mine!
”Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
What the mischief makes him cry?
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Still he stares--I wonder why; Why are not the sons of earth Blind, like puppies, from their birth?
”Lullaby, oh, lullaby!”
Thus I heard the father cry; ”Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Mary, you must come and try!
Hush, oh, hush, for mercy's sake-- The more I sing, the more you wake!
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