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One spake, with quivering lip,

Of a fair freighted ship,

With all his household to the deep gone down;
But one had wilder woe-

For a fair face long ago

Lost in the darker depths of a great town.

There were who mourned their youth
With a most loving ruth,

For its brave hopes and memories ever green;
And one upon the West

Turned an eye that would not rest,

For far-off hills whereon its joy had been.

Some talked of vanished gold,

Some of proud honors told,

Some spake of friends that were their trust no more; And one of a green grave

Beside a foreign wave,

That made him sit so lonely on the shore.

But when their tales were done,

There spake among them one,

A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free:

"Sad losses have ye met,

But mine is heavier yet;

For a believing heart hath gone from me."

"Alas!" these pilgrims said,

"For the living and the dead

For fortune's cruelty, for love's sure cross,

For the wrecks of land and sea!

But, however it came to thee,

Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss."

FRANCES BROWN.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

26

H

The Good Great Man.

WOW seldom, friend, a good great man inherits

Honor and wealth, with all his worth and pains!

It seems a story from the world of spirits

When any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merits that which he obtains.

For shame, my friend! renounce this idle strain !
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain?
Wealth, title, dignity, a golden chain,

Or heap of corses which his sword hath slain?
Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends.
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,

The good great man? Three treasures—love, and light,
And calm thoughts, equable as infant's breath;
And three fast friends, more sure than day or night-
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death?

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.

On His Blindness.

HEN I consider how my light is spent

WH

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-labor, 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."

JOHN MILTON.

CYR

To Cyriack Skinner.

'YRIACK, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot,

Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot:
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man or woman, yet I argue not

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied
In Liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Content, though blind, had I no better guide.

JOHN MILTON.

Virtue.

WEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

Sw

The bridal of the earth and sky!

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in the grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet Spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

LYCIDAS.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;

But though the whole would turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

GEORGE HERBERT.

Y

Lycidas.

ET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more,
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin, then, Sisters of the Sacred Well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse;

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favor my destined urn,
And as he passes turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud;

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill,

Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove a-field, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

263

Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Oft till the star that rose at evening bright

Toward Heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

Tempered to the oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad song would not be absent long,
And old Damætas loved to hear our song.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone---
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn;

The willows, and the hazel copses green,

Shall now no more be seen,

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,

When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep,

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream-
Ay me! I fondly dream!

Had ye been there-for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself for her enchanting son,

Whom universal Nature did lament,

When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,

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