A shudder like the swift passing of an electric shock ran through the house, when Rosse exclaimed, in answer to "Stands Scotland where it did?" Alas, poor country; Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Be called our mother, but our grave: where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air, Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems A modern extasy: the dead man's knell Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying, or ere they sicken.
