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How wild and dim this life appears!
One long, deep, heavy sigh,

When o'er our eyes, half closed in tears,

The images of former years

Are faintly glittering by!

And still forgotten while they go; As, on the sea beach, wave on wave Dissolves at once in snow. The amber clouds one moment lie, Then, like a dream, are gone. Though beautiful the moonbeams play On the lake's bosom, bright as they, And the soul intensely loves their stay, Soon as the radiance melts away,

We scarce believe it shone !

Heaven-airs amid the harp-strings dwell, And we wish they ne'er may fade;— They cease,--and the soul is a silent cell,

Where music never played!

Dream follows dream, through the long night hours,

Each lovelier than the last:

But, ere the breath of morning flowers,
That gorgeous world flies past;

And many a sweet angelic cheek,
Whose smiles of love and fondness speak,
Glides by us on this earth;

While in a day we cannot tell

Where shone the face we loved so well,
In sadness, or in mirth!

WILSON.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

HERE it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Here smoking and frothing,
Its tumults and wrath in,

It hastens along, conflicting, strong,
Now striking and raging,
As if a war waging,

Its caverns and rocks among.

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and flinging,
Showering and springing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Twining and twisting,
Around and around;
Collecting, disjecting,
With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,

In turmoil delighting;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,

And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and growing,
And running and stunning,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,

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And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,

And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,

And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,

And curling and whirling and purling and twirling;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,

Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,

Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,

Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling and boiling,

And thumping and flumping and bumping and jumping,

And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;

And so never ending, but always descend

ing,

Sounds and motions for ever and ever are

blending,

All at once and all o'er, with a mighty up

roar

And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

SOUTHEY.

GOOD HEART AND WILLING HAND.

IN storm or shine, two friends of mine
Go forth to work or play;
And, when they visit poor men's homes,
They bless them by the way.

'Tis willing hand! 'tis cheerful heart!
The two best friends I know;
Around the hearth come joy and mirth,
Where'er their faces glow.

Merrily sound the song!

Come shine-'tis bright! come dark--'tis | So heavily fall the hammer-stroke!
Come cold-'tis warm ere long! [light!
So heavily fall the hammer-stroke!
Merrily sound the song!

Who falls may stand, if good right hand

Is first, not second best:

Who weeps may sing, if kindly heart
Has lodged in his breast.

The humblest board has dainties poured,
When they sit down to dine:
The crust they eat is honey-sweet,
The water good as wine.

They fill the purse with honest gold,
They lead no creature wrong;

Without these twain, the poor complain

Of evils hard to bear;

But with them poverty grows rich,

And finds a loaf to spare!

Their looks are fire-their words inspire-
Their deeds give courage high;

About their knees the children run,

Or climb, they know not why.
Who sails, or rides, or walks with them,
Ne'er finds the journey long:-
So heavily fall the hammer-stroke!
Merrily sound the song!

CHARLES MACKAY.

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Where a band cometh slowly with weeping Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathand wail?

"Tis the Chief of Glenara laments for his dear;

ful and loud;

"And empty that shroud and that coffin did seem:

And her sire and her people are called to Glenara! Glenara! now read me my her bier.

dream!"

Glenara came first with the mourners and Oh! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain, shroud; I ween, Her kinsmen they followed, but mourned When the shroud was unclosed, and no not aloud; body was seen; Their plaids all their bosoms were folded Then a voice from the kinsmen spoke around; louder in scornThey marched all in silence-they looked 'Twas the youth that had loved the fair to the ground. Ellen of Lorn,—

In silence they reached over mountain and "I dreamed of my lady, I dreamed of her grief;

moor,

To a heath where the oak tree grew lonely I dreamed that her lord was a barbarous and hoar;

66

chief;

Now here let us place the gray stone of On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did her cairn

seem:

Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the Glenara! Glenara! now read me my stern.

dream!"

66 And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground,

spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye And the desert revealed where his lady your brows?" was found:

So spake the rude chieftain: no answer From a rock of the ocean that beauty is is made, borne: But each mantle unfolding, a dagger dis- Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of played! Lorn!

CAMPBELL.

SONG OF THE WINTER TREE.

WHAT a happy life was mine, when the | I was hailed with smiling praise in the

sunbeams used to shine

Like golden threads about my summer suit! When my warp and woof of green let

enough of light between,

Just to dry the dew that lingered at my root. What troops of friends I had, when my form was richly clad,

When I was fair 'mid fairest things of earth! Good company came round, and I heard no rougher sound

glowing summer days,

And the beautiful green tree was loved by all.

But the bleak wind has swept by, and the gray cloud dimmed the sky

My latest leaf has left my inmost bough; I creak in grating tones, like the skeleton's bleached bones,

And not a footstep seeks the old tree now.

Than childhood's laugh in bold and leaping I stand at morning's dawn, the cheerless mirth.

and forlorn;

The sunset comes and finds me still alone:

The old man sat him down to note my The mates who shared my bloom have left me in my gloom;

emerald crown,

And rest beneath my branches thick and Birds, poet, dancers, children-all are bright;

The squirrel on the spray kept swinging all the day,

And the song-birds chattered to me through the night.

gone.

The hearts that turned this way when I stood in fine array,

Forsake me now, as though I ceased to be: The dreaming poet laid his soft harp in my I win no painter's gaze, I hear no minstrel's shade

And sung my beauty, chorused by the bee; The village maiden came, to read her own dear name

Carved on my bark, and bless the broad green tree.

lays

The very nest falls from the leafless tree.

But the kind and merry train will be sure to come again,

With love and smiles as ready as of yore;

The merry music breathed while the I must only wait to wear my robe so rich

bounding dancers wreathed

In mazy windings round my giant stem; And the joyous words they poured, as they

trod the chequered sward,

and fair,

And they will throng as they have thronged before.

Told the green tree was a worshipped thing Oh! ye who dwell in pride, with parasites by them.

Oh, what troops of friends I had, to make my strong heart glad!

What kind ones answered to my rustling call!

beside,

Only lose your summer green leaves, and ye'll see

That the courtly friends will change into
things all cold and strange,
And forget ye as they do the winter tree.
ELIZA COOK

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WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command, | Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:

Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang the strain:

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Rule, Britannia, rule the wavesBritons never will be slaves!"

The nations not so bless'd as thee,
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies

Serves but to root thy native oak.

All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame; But work their woe and thy renown.

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair:

"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves-
Britons never will be slaves!"

THOMSON.

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