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Ye winds that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial, endearing report
Of a land I shall visit no more!
My friends,

do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me? O, tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see. How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light.
When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But, alas recollection at hand

Soon hurries me back to despair.

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest,
The beast is laid down in his lair
Even here is a season of rest,

And I to my cabin repair.
There's mercy in every place,

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And mercy encouraging thought!

Gives even affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot.

WILLIAM COWPER.

THE GOOD GREAT MAN.

How 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,

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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.

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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

EXAMPLE.

WE scatter seeds with careless hand,

And dream we ne'er shall see them more;

But for a thousand years

Their fruit appears,

In weeds that mar the land,

Or healthful store.

THE SEASIDE WELL.

"Waters flowed over my head; then I said, I am cut off.” — Lamentations, iii. 54.

ONE day I wandered where the salt sea-tide Backward had drawn its wave,

And found a spring as sweet as e'er hillside To wild-flowers gave.

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And what if Nature's fearful wound

They did not probe and bare,
For that their spirits never swooned

To watch the misery there,

For that their love but flowed more fast, Their charities more free,

Not conscious what mere drops they cast Into the evil sea.

A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet;

It is the distant and the dim

That we are sick to greet;

For flowers that grow our hands beneath

We struggle and aspire,

Our hearts must die, except they breathe The air of fresh desire.

Yet, brothers, who up reason's hill

Advance with hopeful cheer,

Oh, loiter not, those heights are chill,

As chill as they are clear;
And still restrain your haughty gaze
The loftier that ye go,
Remembering distance leaves a haze
On all that lies below.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON.

HISTORY OF A LIFE.

DAY dawned; within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,
A lady lay at point of doom.

Day closed; - a Child had seen the light:
But, for the lady fair and bright,
She rested in undreaming night.

Spring rose; the lady's grave was green;
And near it, oftentimes, was seen
A gentle Boy with thoughtful mien.

Years fled; - he wore a manly face,
And struggled in the world's rough race,
And won at last a lofty place.

And then he died! Behold before ye
Humanity's poor sum and story;
Life, Death, and all that is of Glory.

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall).

THE ROSE-BUSH.

A CHILD sleeps under a rose-bush fair,
The buds swell out in the soft May air;
Sweetly it rests, and on dream-wings flies
To play with the angels in Paradise.
And the years glide by.

A Maiden stands by the rose-bush fair,
The dewy blossoms perfume the air;
She presses her hand to her throbbing breast,
With love's first wonderful rapture blest.
And the years glide by.

A Mother kneels by the rose-bush fair,
Soft sigh the leaves in the evening air;
Sorrowing thoughts of the past arise,
And tears of anguish bedim her eyes.
And the years glide by.

Naked and lone stands the rose-bush fair,
Whirled are the leaves in the autumn air,
Withered and dead they fall to the ground,
And silently cover a new-made mound.
And the years glide by.

From the German, by WILLIAM W. CALDWELL.

LIFE.

I MADE a posie, while the day ran by :
"Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band."
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart;
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time's gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
Making my minde to smell my fatall day,
Yet sug'ring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers! sweetly your time ye

spent ;

Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
Aud after death for cures.

I follow straight without complaints or grief;
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.

GEORGE HERBERT.

THE RIVER OF LIFE.

THE more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,

Ere passion yet disorders, Steals lingering like a river smooth Along its grassy borders.

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