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CURFEW.

I.

SOLEMNLY, mournfully
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell

Is beginning to toll

Cover the embers,

And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire
Sound fades into silence,-
All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,

No sound in the hall!

Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all!

II.

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

S

Dim grow its fancies;
Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,

They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,

The windows are darkened,

The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall; Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

THE

SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE.

THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE.

DEDICATION

As one who, walking in the twilight gloom,
Hears round about him voices as it darkens,
And seeing not the forms from which they come,
Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;

So walking here in twilight, O my friends!
I hear your voices, softened by the distance,
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends
His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.

If any thought of mine, or sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold,
By every friendly sign and salutation.

Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown
Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,

That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.

Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,—

One touch of fire, and all the rest is mystery!

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