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OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

But a sudden change came o'er his heart
Ere the setting of the sun,

And Tubal Cain was filled with pain
For the evil he had done;

He saw that men, with rage and hate,
Made war upon their kind,
That the land was red with the blood
they shed

In their lust for carnage blind. And he said, "Alas! that ever I made, Or that skill of mine should plan, The spear and the sword for men whose joy

Is to slay their fellow-man."

And for many a day old Tubal Cain
Sat brooding o'er his woe;
And his hand forbore to smite the ore,
And his furnace smouldered low.
But he rose at last with a cheerful face,
And a bright, courageous eye,
And bared his strong right arm for work,
While the quick flames mounted high.
And he sang, "Hurrah for my handi-
craft!"

And the red sparks lit the air; "Not alone for the blade was the bright steel made";

And he fashioned the first ploughshare.

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219

| No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds,
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mould it into heavenly forms!

DOROTHY Q.

A FAMILY PORTRAIT.

GRANDMOTHER's mother; her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air,
Smooth, square forehead, with uprolled
hair,

Lips that lover has never kissed,
Taper fingers and slender wrist,

F

Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade, So they painted the little maid.

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On her hand a parrot green
Sits unmoving and broods serene;
Hold up the canvas full in view,
Look! there's a rent the light shines
through,

Dark with a century's fringe of dust, -
That was a Redcoat's rapier-thrust!
Such is the tale the lady old,
Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told.

Who the painter was none may tell,
One whose best was not over well;
Hard and dry, it must be confessed,
Flat as a rose that has long been pressed;
Yet in her cheek the hues are bright,
Dainty colors of red and white;
And in her slender shape are seen
Hint and promise of stately mien.

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Look not on her with eyes of scorn,
Dorothy Q. was a lady born!
Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
England's annals have known her name;
And still to the three-hilled rebel town
Dear is that ancient name's renown,
For many a civic wreath they won,
The youthful sire and the gray-haired son.

O damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q. !
Strange is the gift that I owe to you;
Such a gift as never a king
Save to daughter or son might bring, -
All my tenure of heart and hand,
All my title to house and land;
Mother and sister, and child and wife,
And joy and sorrow, and death and life!

What if a hundred years ago

Those close-shut lips had answered, No, When forth the tremulous question came That cost the maiden her Norman name; And under the folds that look so still The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill? Should I be I, or would it be

One tenth another to nine tenths me?

Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes: Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast Through all the battles of wave and blast, And never an echo of speech or song That lives in the babbling air so long! There were tones in the voice that whispered then

You may hear to-day in a hundred men!

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story,

Weep for the voiceless, who have known The cross without the crown of glory! Not where Leucadian's breezes sweep

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep

On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign

Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till Death pours out his cordial wine Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,

If singing breath or echoing chord

To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

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OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

ROBINSON OF LEYDEN.

He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer His wandering flock had gone before, But he, the shepherd, might not share Their sorrows on the wintry shore.

221

Still cry them, and the world shall hear, Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!

Before the Speedwell's anchor swung,
Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread,
While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, OR, THE WONDERFUL
The pastor spake, and thus he said :-

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE;

:

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66

ONE-HOSS SHAY.'

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Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss
shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,

There is always somewhere a weakest spot,

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, lurking
still,

Find it somewhere you must and will,
Above or below, or within or without,
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear
out.

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Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the Little of all we value here

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Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their
lips,

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and
wide;

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."-
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll
dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder, and nothing less! Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, Deacon and deaconess dropped away, Children and grandchildren,—where were they?

But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;-it came and found

The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.

Eighteen hundred increased by ten;-
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; —
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its

youth,

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The parson was working his Sunday's text,

Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the-Moses-
3-was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.

- First a shiver, and then a thrill, Then something decidedly like a spill, And the parson was sitting upon a rock, At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found, When he got up and stared around? The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, As if it had been to the mill and ground! You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, How it went to pieces all at once, —

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