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The voice which I did more esteem Than music in her sweetest key, Those eyes which unto me did seem More comfortable than the day

Those now by me, as they have been!

Shall never more be heard or seen; But what I once enjoyed in them Shall seem hereafter as a dream.

All earthly comforts vanish thus
So little hold of them have we
That we from them or they from us
May in a moment ravished be;

Yet we are neither just nor wise
If present mercies we despise,
Or mind not how there may be made
A thankful use of what we had.

I therefore do not so bemoan,
Though these beseeming tears I drop,
The loss of my beloved one
As they that are deprived of hope;
But in expressing of my grief
My heart receiveth some relief,
And joyeth in the good I had,
Although my sweets are bitter made.

Lord, keep me faithful to the trust
Which my dear spouse reposed in me!
To him now dead preserve me just
In all that should performèd be;

For though our being man and wife
Extendeth only to this life,

Yet neither life nor death should end
The being of a faithful friend.

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He was reviled, yet naught replied,

Those helps which I through him en- | And I will imitate the same;

joyed,

Let Thy continual aid supply

For though some faults may be de nied,

That, though some hopes in him are In part I always faulty am:

void,

I always may on Thee rely;
And whether I shall wed again,
Or in a single state remain,

Content with meek and humble heart,
I will abide in my degree,

And act an humble servant's part,
Till God shall call me to be free.

JOHN WOLCOT (PETER PINDAR).

TO MY CANDLE.

THOU lone companion of the spectred night!

I wake amid thy friendly watchful light.

To steal a precious hour from lifeless sleep.

Hark, the wild uproar of the winds! and hark! [the dark, Hell's genius roams the regions of And swells the thundering horrors of the deep!

From cloud to cloud the pale moon hurrying flies,

Now blackened, and now flashing through the skies; [beam. But all is silence here, beneath thy I own I labor for the voice of praise For who would sink in dull oblivion's stream?

Who would not live in songs of distant days?

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TO MARY.

CHARLES WOLFE.

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And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary! thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene

I still might press thy silent heart, And where thy smiles have been! While e'en thy chill, bleak corpse I have,

Thou seemest still mine own; But there I lay thee in thy graveAnd I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;
And I, perhaps, may soothe this
heart,

In thinking too of thee:

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[From Lines Composed a Few Miles Above | In hours of weariness, sensations

Tintern Abbey.]

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His little, nameless, unremembered [From Lines Composed a Few Miles Above

acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less,

I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burden of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world

Es lightened; that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead

us on,

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,

And even the motion of our human blood,

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

I have learned To look on Nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting

suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

Tintern Abbey.

APOSTROPHE TO THE POET'S SISTER.

THOU art with me, here, upon the

banks

Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend,

My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings. the moon

Therefore let

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind

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