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To the last point of vision, and be-Two of us in the churchyard lie,

yond,

Mount, daring warbler!

that love

prompted strain -'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond

Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain:

Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing

All independent of the leafy spring.

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;

A privacy of glorious light is thine, Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood

Of harmony, with instinct more divine;

Type of the wise, who soar, but never

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My sister and my brother;
And, in the churchyard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother."

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And often after sunset, sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

The first that died was little Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

So in the churchyard she was laid;
And all the summer dry,
Together round her grave we play'd,
My brother John and I.

And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and
smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A traveller betwixt life and death;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
The reason firm, the temperate,
will,

And when the ground was white with Endurance, foresight, strength, and

snow,

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skill;

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SCORN NOT THE SONNET.

SCORN not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honors: with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody

Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;

A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; [grief; Camoëns soothed with it an exile's The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned

His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from fairy-land

To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp [hand Fell round the path of Milton, in his The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew

Soul-animating strains alas, too few!

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TO THE CUCKOO.

O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:

O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?

While I am lying on the grass,
Thy loud note smites my ear!
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near!

I hear thee babbling to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers;
And unto me thou bringest a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!

Even yet thou art to me

No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery.

The same whom in my school-boy days

I listened to; that cry

Which made me look a thousand ways

In bush and tree and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be

An unsubstantial, fairy place;
That is fit home for thee!

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DISDAIN me not without desert,

Nor leave me not so suddenly;
Since well ye wot that in my heart
I mean ye not but honestly.

Refuse me not without cause why,
Nor think me not to be unjust;

Since that by lot of fantasy,

Mistrust me not, though some there be
That fain would spot my steadfast-

ness.

Believe them not, since that ye see
The proof is not as they express.

Forsake me not, till I deserve;

Nor hate me not, till I offend, Destroy me not, till that I swerve;

But since ye know what I intend,

Disdain me not, that am your own;

Refuse me not that am so true; Mistrust me not, till all be known;

Forsake me not now for no new.

PLEASURE MIXED WITH PAIN. VENOMOUS thorns that are so sharp and keen

Bear flowers we see, full fresh and fair of hue:

Poison is also put in medicine,

And unto man his health doth oft

renew.

The fire that all things eke consumeth clean,

May hurt and heal: then if that this be true,

I trust some time my harm may be my health,

This careful knot needs knit I Since every woe is joinèd with some

must.

wealth.

EDWARD YOUNG.

[From Night Thoughts.]

NIGHT I.

PROCRASTINATION, AND FORGET-
FULNESS OF DEATH.

ALL promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage: when
young, indeed,

In full content we sometimes nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.

At thirty man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to re solve;

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