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Can this with faded pinion soar
From rose to tulip as before?
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower?
No; gayer insects fluttering by

Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim,
Except an erring sister's shame.

LORD BYRON.

WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY.

I LOVED thee once, I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief as is the blame ;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?
He that can love unloved again,
Hath better store of love than brain :
God send me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.

Nothing could have my love o'erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remained thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
But thou thy freedom did recall,
That if thou might elsewhere inthrall ;
And then how could I but disdain
A captive's captive to remain ?

When new desires had conquered thee, And changed the object of thy will,

It had been lethargy in me,

Not constancy, to love thee still.

Yea, it had been a sin to go
And prostitute affection so,

Since we are taught no prayers to say
To such as must to others pray.

Yet do thou glory in thy choice,

Thy choice of his good fortune boast; I'll neither grieve nor yet rejoice, To see him gain what I have lost; The height of my disdain shall be, To laugh at him, to blush for thee; To love thee still, but go no more A begging to a beggar's door.

SIR ROBERT AYTON.

THE TRUE AND THE FALSE.

WHERE shall the lover rest
Whom the fates sever
From his true maiden's breast,
Parted forever?

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BALOW, my babe, ly stil and sleipe!
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe;
If thou 'st be silent, I 'se be glad,
Thy maining maks my heart ful sad.
Balow, my boy, thy mither's joy!
Thy father breides me great annoy.

Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe !
It grieves me sair to see thee weipe.
When he began to court my luve,
And with his sugred words to muve,
His faynings fals, and flattering cheire,
To me that time did not appeire :

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Abune the clay-cauld deid; And this green turf we're sittin' on, Wi' dew-draps shimmerin' sheen, Will hap the heart that luvit thee As warld has seldom seen.

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She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
And I would that I were dead !"

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blackened waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver green with gnarlèd bark, For leagues no other tree did dark The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead !"

And ever when the moon was low,

And the shrill winds were up and away,

In the white curtain, to and fro,

She saw the gusty shadow sway.

But when the moon was very low,

And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.

She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,

The doors upon their hinges creaked, The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the moldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about.

Old faces glimmered through the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.

She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,

The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping toward his western bower. Then, said she, "I am very dreary, He will not come," she said; She wept, "I am aweary, aweary, O God, that I were dead!"

ALFRED TENNYSON.

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