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THE MARTYR: A DRAMA.

Who hath but seen the element of fire
On household hearth or woodman's smoky pile,
And looks at once, midst stounding thunderpeals,
On Jove's magnificence of lightning.—Pardon,
I pray you pardon me! I mean his lightning.
Who is the Jove of Jove, the great Jehova.

FATHER (smiling).

Be not disturb'd, my son; the lips will utter.

From lengthen'd habit, what the mind rejects.

CORDENIUS.

These blessed hours which I have pass'd with you

Have to my intellectual being given
New feelings and expansion, like to that
Which once I felt, on viewing by degrees
The wide developement of nature's amplitude.

FATHER.

And how was that, my son?


CORDENIUS.

I well remember it; even at this moment

Imagination sees it all again.
'Twas on a lofty mountain of Armenia,
O'er which I led by night my martial cohort,
To shun the fierce heat of a summer's day.
Close round us hung, the vapours of the night
Had form'd a woofy curtain, dim and pale,
Through which the waning moon did faintly mark
Its slender crescent.