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THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

29. WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL,

CAMBRIDGE.

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,

With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd
(Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense

And glorious work of fine intelligence!

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-Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more :—

So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells,
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.

-Wordsworth.

30. THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.

At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,

Hangs a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years:

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard

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In the silence of morning the song of the bird.

"Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees

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A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she often has tripp'd with her pail ;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

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She looks, and her heart is in heaven; but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.

-Wordsworth.

31.-ON HIS BLINDNESS.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker and present
My true account, lest He, returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state

Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

-Milton.

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