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Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly,-

Smooth and compose them;

And her eyes, close them, Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Through muddy impurity, As when with the daring Last look of despairing Fix'd on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,
Spurr'd by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,

Into her rest.—

Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

THOMAS HOOD.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.

FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,

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TOLL YE THE CHURCH-BELL SAD AND SLOW."

He lieth still: he doth not move:

He hath no other life above.

He will not see the

dawn
day.

He gave me a friend, and a true true-love,
And the New year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go;

of

So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim ;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But though his eyes are waxing dim,
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.

Old year, you shall not die;

We did so laugh and cry with you
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.

He was full of joke and jest,

But all his merry quips are o'er.

To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before.

Every one for his own.

The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New year blithe and bold, my friend,

Comes up to take his own.

How hard he breathes!

Over the snow

I heard just now the crowing cock.

The shadows flicker to and fro:

The cricket chirps: the light burns low .

'Tis nearly twelve o'clock.

Shake hands before you die.

Old year, we'll dearly rue for you:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone.
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse and let him in

That standeth there alone,

And waiteth at the door.

There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,

And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of

the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's

tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the

shrubs the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

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"THE MELANCHOLY DAYS ARE COME."

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good

of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones

again.

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