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PUCK. How now, spirit, whither wander you? FAIRY. Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green : The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favors, In those freckles live their savors: I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. Sc. 1

SHAKESPEARE.

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Quite spent and out of breath he reached the tree,

And, listening fearfully, he heard once more
The low voice murmur "Rhecus!" close at hand:
Whereat he looked around him, but could see
Naught but the deepening glooms beneath the
oak.

Then sighed the voice, "O Rhocus! nevermore
Shalt thou behold me or by day or night,
Me, who would fain have blessed thee with a love
More ripe and bounteous than ever yet

Filled up with nectar any mortal heart;
But thou didst scorn my humble messenger,
And sent'st him back to me with bruised wings.
We spirits only show to gentle eyes,

We ever ask an undivided love.

And he who scorns the least of Nature's works
Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from all.
Farewell for thou canst never see me more.'
J. R. LOWELL.

Rhœcus.

And though the hand is thronged again, Strange sadness touches all that.

O Sea,

go with thee.

The small birds flaming note, the wild, sharp call, spirite it is sadness all!

Share thine own

How dark & stein

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Yonder tool bleff! ~ be with the crow cronow,
And see! Those sable Pines along the steep
tre come to join thy requiem, gloomy Deap!
Like stored monks they stand & chant the dinges

My

Dwn the dead with they

low

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POEMS OF TRAGEDY.

This is love, who, deaf to prayers,
Floods with blessing unawares.
Draw, if then cauft, the mystic line
Severing rightly his from themes

Which is human, which divine.

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POEMS OF TRAGEDY.

IPHIGENEIA AND AGAMEMNON. IPHIGENEIA, when she heard her doom At Aulis, and when all beside the king Had gone away, took his right hand, and said: "O father! I am young and very happy. I do not think the pious Calchas heard Distinctly what the goddess spake; old age Obscures the senses. If my nurse, who knew My voice so well, sometimes misunderstood, While I was resting on her knee both arms, And hitting it to make her mind my words, And looking in her face, and she in mine, Might not he, also, hear one word amiss, Spoken from so far off, even from Olympus?" The father placed his cheek upon her head, And tears dropt down it; but the king of men Replied not. Then the maiden spake once more: "O father! sayest thou nothing? Hearest thou

not

Me, whom thou ever hast, until this hour,
Listened to fondly, and awakened me
To hear my voice amid the voice of birds,
When it was inarticulate as theirs,

And the down deadened it within the nest ?'
He moved her gently from him, silent still;
And this, and this alone, brought tears from her,
Although she saw fate nearer. Then with sighs:
I thought to have laid down my hair before
Benignant Artemis, and not dimmed
Her polished altar with my virgin blood;
I thought to have selected the white flowers
To please the nymphs, and to have asked of each
By name, and with no sorrowful regret,

Whether, since both my parents willed the change,
I might at Hymen's feet bend my clipt brow;
And (after these who mind us girls the most)
Adore our own Athene, that she would
Regard me mildly with her azure eyes,
But, father, to see you no more, and see
Your love, O father! go ere I am gone!"
Gently he moved her off, and drew her back,
Bending his lofty head far over hers;

And the dark depths of nature heaved and burst.
He turned away, not far, but silent still.

She now first shuddered; for in him, so nigh,
So long a silence seemed the approach of death,
And like it. Once again she raised her voice:
"O father! if the ships are now detained,
And all your vows move not the gods above,
When the knife strikes me there will be one prayer
The less to them; and purer can there be
Any, or more fervent, than the daughter's prayer
For her dear father's safety and success?"
A groan that shook him shook not his resolve.
An aged man now entered, and without
One word stepped slowly on, and took the wrist
Of the pale maiden. She looked up, and saw
The fillet of the priest and calm, cold eyes.
Then turned she where her parent stood, and cried:
"O father! grieve no more; the ships can sail."

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

THE ROMAN FATHER'S SACRIFICE.

FROM "VIRGINIA."

STRAIGHTWAY Virginius led the maid
A little space aside,

To where the reeking shambles stood,
Piled up with horn and hide;
Close to yon low dark archway,

Where, in a crimson flood,
Leaps down to the great sewer

The gurgling stream of blood.

Hard by, a flesher on a block

Had laid his whittle down: Virginius caught the whittle up,

And hid it in his gown. And then his eyes grew very dim, And his throat began to swell, And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, "Farewell, sweet child! Farewell!

"O, how I loved my darling!
Though stern I sometimes be,

To thee, thou know'st, I was not so,
Who could be so to thee?

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