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Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries;
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,
Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came, nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the churchway path I saw him borne: Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay Graved on the stone, beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Misery all he had a tear;

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode Where they alike in trembling hope repose, The bosom of his Father and his God.

KUBLA KHAN.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERidge.

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round,

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Infolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that chasm deep which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover,
A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast, thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift, half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult, Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices, prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the cave.

It was a miracle of rare device

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,

To such deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, "Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

ON HIS FRIENDS.

MESKIN ALDARAMY. TRANSLATION OF JOHN D. CARLYLE.

WITH Conscious pride I view the band Of faithful friends that round me stand, With pride exult that I, alone

Can join these scattered gems in one;

For they're a wreath of pearls, and I
The silken cord on which they lie.

'Tis mine their inmost souls to see!
Unlocked is every heart to me,
To me they cling; in me they rest
And I've a place in every breast;
For they're a wreath of pearls, and I
The silken cord on which they lie.

LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

To the Right Honorable, The Earl of Chesterfield.

MY LORD: I have been lately informed by the proprietor of "The World" that two papers in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so To be so distinguished is an honor which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself "le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre";-that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it.

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