Round the corner of
that rock, so absorbed in admiration that he could hear no footstep, a
very fine young man of the highest order was reading aloud in a powerful
voice, and with extremely ardent gesticulation, a fine passage from that
greatly undervalued poem, the Harmodiad, of and concerning the beauties
of Freedom--
"No crown upon her comely head she bore,
No wreath her affluent tresses to restrain;
A smile the only ornament she wore,
Her only gem a tear for others' pain.
Herself did not her own mishaps deplore,
Because she lives immortal as the dew,
Which falling from the stars soon mounts again;
And in this wise all space she travels through,
Beneficent as heaven, and to the earth more true.
"Her blessings all may win who seek the prize,
If only they be faithful, meek, and strong,
And crave not that which others' right denies,
But march against the citadel of wrong.
A glorious army this, that finds allies
Wherever God hath built the heart of man
With attributes that to Himself belong;
By Him ordained to crown what He began,
And shatter despotism, which is the foul fiend's ban."
Frank thought that he had never heard nobler reading, sonorous, clear,
well timed, well poised, and of harmonious cadence. The curved rock gave
a melodious ring, and the husky waves a fine contrast to it, while
the reader was so engrossed with grandeur--the grandeur of Frank's own
mind!--that his hat could evidently not contain his head, but was flung
at the mercy of his feet.
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