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Will evening bring no unsought fruitage home?

Must the days pass and these poor lips be dumb,

While strewing leaves sing falling through the air,

And autumn gathers in her richest fruit ?

Where is my spring departed? Where, O gods!

Within my spirit still the building birds

I hear, with voice more tender than when leaves

Are budding and the happy earth is gay.

Am I, indeed, grown dumb for evermore!

Take me, O bark! Take me, thou flowing stream!

Who knowest nought of death save when thy waves

Rush to new life upon the ocean's breast.

Bear thou me singing to the under world!

[From Sophocles.]

AGED SOPHOCLES ADDRESSING THE ATHENIANS BEFORE READING HIS

EDIPUS COLONEUS.

BOWED half with age and half with

reverence, thus,

I, Sophocles, now answer to your

call;

Questioned have I the cause and the reason learned.

Lo, I am here that all the world may

see

These feeble limbs that signal of decay!

But, know ye, ere the aged oak must die.

Long after the strong years have bent his form,

The spring still gently weaves a leafy crown,

Fresh as of yore to deck his wintry head.

And now, O people mine, who have loved my song,

Ye shall be judges if the spring have brought

Late unto me, the aged oak, a crown. Hear ye once more, ere yet the river of sleep

Bear me away far on its darkening tide,

The music breathed upon me from these fields.

If to your ears, alas! the shattered strings

No longer sing, but breathe a discord harsh,

I will return and draw this mantle close

About my head and lay me down to die.

But if ye hear the wonted spirit call, Framing the natural song that fills this world

To a diviner form, then shall ye all believe

The love I bear to those most near to

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To the storm,

To the voices of pleasure,

Nor faint in the arms of the earth;

But she followeth ever the form
Of the Master whose promise is sure,

Of thy grape was no frost and no Who knows both our death and our

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FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE ODEON.

"I AM Nicholas Tacchinardi,-hunchbacked, look you, and a fright; Caliban himself might never interpose so foul a sight.

Granted; but I come not, masters, to exhibit form or size.

Gaze not on my limbs, good people; lend your ears, and not your eyes.
I'm a singer, not a dancer,-spare me for a while your din;

Let me try my voice to-night here,- keep your jests till I begin.
Have the kindness but to listen,-this is all I dare to ask.
See, I stand beside the footlights, waiting to begin my task,

If I fail to please you, curse me,- not before my voice you hear,

Thrust me not from the Odéon. Hearken, and I've naught to fear."

Then the crowd in pit and boxes jeered the dwarf, and mocked his shape;
Called him "monster," "thing abhorrent," crying, "Off, presumptuous ape!
Off, unsightly, baleful creature! off, and quit the insulted stage!
Move aside, repulsive figure, or deplore our gathering rage."

Bowing low, pale Tacchinardi, long accustomed to such threats,
Burst into a grand bravura, showering notes like diamond jets,—
Sang until the ringing plaudits through the wide Odéon rang,--
Sang as never soaring tenor ere behind those footlights sang;
And the hunchback, ever after, like a god was hailed with cries,-
“King of minstrels, live forever! Shame on fools who have but eyes!"

FRANCIS MILES FINCH.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

By the flow of the inland river;
Whence the fleets of iron had fled.
Where the blades of the grave-grass
quiver,

Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew;

Waiting the Judgment-Day;
Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat;
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;

Under the sod and the dew;
Waiting the Judgment-Day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;

Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers,
Alike for the friend and the foe;
Under the sod and the dew;
Waiting the Judgment-Day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.

So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew;
Waiting the Judgment-Day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray

So, when the summer calleth
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;

Under the sod and the dew:
Waiting the Judgment-Day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

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I HEAR it often in the dark,
I hear it in the light.-

Where is the voice that calls to me
With such a quiet might?
It seems but echo to my thought,
And yet beyond the stars;
It seems a heart-beat in a hush,
And yet the planet jars.

Oh, may it be that far within
My inmost soul there lies
A spirit-sky, that opens with

Those voices of surprise?
And can it be, by night and day,
That firmament serene

Is just the heaven where God himself,
The Father, dwells unseen?

Oh, God within, so close to me
That every thought is plain,

Be judge, be friend, be Father still,
And in thy heaven reign!
Thy heaven is mine,
soul!

my very

Thy words are sweet and strong; They fill my inward silences With music and with song.

They send me challenges to right.
And loud rebuke my ill;
They ring my bells of victory,

They breathe my "Peace, be still!"
They ever seem to say, "My child;
Why seek me so all day?
Now journey inward to thyself,
And listen by the way.'

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