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But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart.

Brother of Bacchus, later born!
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee, that aidest more
The god's victories than, before,
All his panthers, and the brawls
Of his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stale, we disallow,

Or judge of thee meant only thou
His true Indian conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformed god now weaves
A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.

Scent to match thy rich perfume Chemic art did ne'er presume, Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sovereign to the brain. Nature, that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell. Roses, violets, but toys

For the smaller sort of boys,

Or for greener damsels meant ;
Thou art the only manly scent.

Stinkingest of the stinking kind!

Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind!
Africa, that brags her foison,
Breeds no such prodigious poison !
Henbane, nightshade, both together,
Hemlock, aconite

Nay, rather,

Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you!
"T was but in a sort I blamed thee;
None e'er prospered who defamed thee;
Irony all, and feigned abuse,
Such as perplexed lovers use
At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
Which their fancies doth so strike,
They borrow language of dislike;
And, instead of dearest Miss,
Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss,
And those forms of old admiring,
Call her cockatrice and siren,

Basilisk, and all that's evil,
Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil,
Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor,
Monkey, ape, and twenty more ;
Friendly trait'ress, loving foe,
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way they know,
A contentment to express
Borders so upon excess

That they do not rightly wot
Whether it be from pain or not..

Or, as men, constrained to part With what's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow's at the height Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall, On the darling thing, whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.

For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, Tobacco, I

Would do anything but die,

And but seek to extend my days
Long enough to sing thy praise.
But, as she who once hath been
A king's consort is a queen
Ever after, nor will bate
Any tittle of her state
Though a widow, or divorced,
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
A right Katherine of Spain;
And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
Of the blest Tobacco Boys;
Where, though I, by sour physician,
Am debarred the full fruition
Of thy favors, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odors, that give life
Like glances from a neighbor's wife;
And still live in the by-places
And the suburbs of thy graces ;
And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquered Canaanite.

CHARLES LAMB

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His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school,
Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,

TO THE HARVEST MOON. PLEASING 't is, O modest Moon! Now the night is at her noon, 'Neath thy sway to musing lie, While around the zephyrs sigh, Fanning soft the sun-tanned wheat, Ripened by the summer's heat; Picturing all the rustic's joy When boundless plenty greets his eye, And thinking soon,

O modest Moon!

How many a female eye will roam Along the road,

To see the load,

The last dear load of harvest home.

Storms and tempests, floods and rains, Stern despoilers of the plains,

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In moderate cold and heat,

To walk in the air how pleasant and fair! In every field of wheat,

The fairest of flowers adorning the bowers, And every meadow's brow;

So that I say, no courtier may

Compare with them who clothe in gray, And follow the useful plough.

They rise with the morning lark,

And labor till almost dark,

THE PLOUGHMAN.

CLEAR the brown path to meet his coulter's

gleam!

Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,

The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!

First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod.
Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves;
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain,
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing
clay,

The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging ploughshare circles glistening
round,

Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.

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We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,
Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn;
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.

Then, folding their sheep, they hasten to Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms

sleep

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Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away.

No, by these hills whose banners now displayed
In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed;
By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests
The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests;

By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, Tallest primroses, or loftiest daisies, And feeds with streamlets from its dark ra

vines,

True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil
To crown with peace their own untainted soil;
And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind,
If her chained ban-dogs Faction shall unbind,
These stately forms, that, bending even now,
Bowed their strong manhood to the humble
plough,

Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land,
The same stern iron in the same right hand,
Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run,
The sword has rescued what the ploughshare
won !

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

THE MOWERS.

THE sunburnt mowers are in the swath -
Swing, swing, swing!

The towering lilies loath
Tremble and totter and fall;
The meadow-rue

Dashes its tassels of golden dew;

And the keen blade sweeps o'er all-
Swing, swing, swing!

The flowers, the berries, the feathered grass,
Are thrown in a smothered mass;
Hastens away the butterfly;

With half their burden the brown bees hie;

And the meadow-lark shrieks distrest, And leaves the poor younglings all in the nest. The daisies clasp and fall;

And totters the Jacob's-ladder tall.
Weaving and winding and curving lithe,
O'er plumy hillocks — through dewy hollows,
His subtle scythe

The nodding mower follows-
Swing, swing, swing!

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Not a steel-blue feather
Of slim wing grazes:

Fear not fear not!" cry the swallows.
Each mower tightens his snath-ring's wedge,
And his finger daintily follows
The long blade's tickle-edge;
Softly the whetstone's last touches ring –
Ting-a-ling ting-a-ling!

Like a leaf-muffled bird in the woodland nigh, Faintly the fading echoes reply

Ting-a-ling ting-a-ling!

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