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"Her book of the favorite poet unheeded at her side,

She saw the bright noon pale to twilight soon, she saw the gloaming glide."

WAITING.

CITTING under the birch trees, in the Hearing the birds' gay carol, seeing each

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glancing wing,

Wishing them mute, lest the coming foot were unheard 'mid the sounds of Spring.

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That came and fitted round; Death, death, and nothing but death, In every sight and sound!

"And oh! those maidens young,

Who wrought in that dreary room With figures drooping and spectres thin, And cheeks without a bloom;

And the Voice that cried: For the pomp of pride,

We haste to an early tomb!

"For the pomp and pleasure of pride, We toil like Afric slaves,

And only to earn a home at last,

Where yonder cypress waves;' And then they pointed-I never saw A ground so full of graves!

แ And still the coffins came,

Coffin after coffin still,
With their sorrowful trains and slow;

A sad and sickening show;
From grief exempt, I had never dreamt

Of such a world of woe!

"Of the hearts that daily break,
Of the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life,
That grieve this earthly ball,
Disease and Hunger and Pain and Want;
But now I dreamt of them all.

"For the blind and crippled were there,

And the babe that pined for bread,
And the houseless man, and the widow poor
Who begged-to bury the dead;

The naked, alas, that I might have clad,
The famished I might have fed!

"The sorrow I might have soothed,
And the unregarded tears;
For many a thronging shape was there,
From long forgotten years;
Aye, even the poor rejected Moor,
Who raised my childish fears!

"Each pleading look that long ago
I scanned with a heedless eye,
Each face was gazing as plainly there
As when I passed it by;

Woe, woe for me, if the past should be
Thus present when I die!

"No need of sulphureous lake,

No need of fiery coal,

But only that crowd of human kind

Who wanted pity and dole,

In everlasting retrospect

Will wring my sinful soul!

"Alas! I have walked through life
Too heedless where I trod;
Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm
And fill the burial sod,

Forgetting that even the sparrow falls
Not unmarked of God.

"I drank the richest draughts,
And ate whatever is good;

Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit,
Supplied my hungry mood;

But I never remembered the wretched ones
That starve for want of food.

"I dressed as the noble dress,

In cloth of silver and gold,

With silk, and satin, and costly furs,
In many an ample fold;

But I never remembered the naked limbs
That froze with winter's cold!

"The wounds I might have healed!
The human sorrow and smart!
And yet it was never in my soul
To play so ill a part;

But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart!"

She clasped her fervent hands,

And the tears began to stream;
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,
Remorse was so extreme;

And yet, oh yet, that many a dame
Would dream the Lady's Dream!

THOMAS HOOD.

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And a' the warld to rest are gane,

Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me

for his bride;

But saving a croun he had naething else beside;

The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my To make the croun a pund, young Jamie gaed

e'e,

While my gudeman lies sound by me.

to sea,

And the croun and the pund were baith for me.

He hadna been away a week but only twa, When my father brak his arm, and the cow was stown awa;

My mother she fell sick, and my Jamie at the sea,

And auld Robin Gray came a-courtin' me.

My father couldna work, and my mother couldna spin;

I toiled night and day, but their bread I couldna win;

Auld Rob maintained them baith, and wi' tears in his e'e,

Said, "Jennie, for their sakes, oh, marry me!"

ODE TO ADVERSITY. AUGHTER of Jove, relentless power,

DA

Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best;
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire, to send on earth,

Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind;
Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore;

My heart it said nay, for I looked for Jamie What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know,

back;

But the wind it blew high, and the ship, it

was a wrack;

His ship it was a wrack-why didna Jamie dee?

Or why do I live to cry, Wae's me?

And from her own, she learned to melt at others' woe.

Scared at thy frown terrific, fly

Self pleasing Folly's idle brood,

With Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse; and with them go

My father urgit sair; my mother didna The summer friend, the flattering foe,

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By vain Prosperity received;

To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.

Wisdom, in simple garb arrayed,

Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend;
Warm Charity, the general friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly pleasing tear.
Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Nor circled with thy vengeful band,
As by the impious thou art seen,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
With thundering voice and threatening mien,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.
Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear!
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there,

To soften, not to wound my heart;

I daurna think on Jamie, for that wad be a The generous spark extinct revive;

sin;

But I'll do my best a gude wife to be,

For auld Robin Gray he is kind to me.

LADY ANN LINDSAY.

Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a
THOMAS GRAY.

man.

BACK

ROCK ME TO SLEEP.

ACKWARD, turn backward, O Time in
your flight,

Make me a child again, just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart, as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain ;
Take them, and give me my childhood again.
I have grown weary of dust and decay,
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away,
Weary of sowing for others to reap;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between,
Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I to-night for thy presence again.
Come from the silence, so long and so deep;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,
Faithful, unselfish, and patient, like yours;
None but a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain;
Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with
gold,

Fall on your shoulders, again as of old,
Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;

0

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song;

Sing, then; and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep,
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
(Florence Percy.")

OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT.
FT in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone

Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken:

Thus in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The friends so linked together
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!
Thus in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

AFFLICTION.

THOMAS MOORE.

'HE bread of bitterness is the food on which men grow to their fullest stature; the waters of bitterness are the debatable ford through which they reach the shores of wisdom; the ashes boldly grasped and eaten without faltering are the price that must be paid for the golden fruit of knowledge.

LOUISE DE LA RAME. ('Ouida. "')

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