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But the sound of the church-going bell,
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.

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 himself lags behind

And the swift-wingéd 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,
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace,
And reconciles man to his lot.

W. Cowper.

CLX.

ADDRESS TO BRITAIN.

(FROM SAMOR.')

AND of my birth, O Britain, land beloved,
Whose tongue my song would speak, most proud
If not in strains unworthy. Beauteous Isle,
And plenteous! what though in thy atmosphere
Float not the taintless luxury of light,

The dazzling azure of the southern skies?
Around thee the rich orb of thy renown
Spreads stainless, and unsullied by a cloud.
Though thy hills blush not with the purple vine,
And softer climes excel thee in the hue

And fragrance of thy summer fruits and flowers ;
Nor flow thy rivers over golden beds ;-
Thou in the Soul of man, thy better wealth,

Art richest. Nature's noblest produce, thou―
The immortal mind in perfect height and strength—
Bearest with lavish opulence. This thy right,
Thy privilege of climate and of soil,

Would I assert; nor, save thy fame, invoke

Or Nymph or Muse, that oft 'twas dreamed of old By falls of waters under haunted shades

Her ecstasy of inspiration poured

O'er Poet's soul, and flooded all his powers
With liquid glory: so may thy renown

Burn in my heart, and give to thought and word
The aspiring and the radiant hue of fire.

H. H. Milman.

CLXI.

ADELGITHA.

HE ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded,
And sad, pale Adelgitha came,
When forth a valiant champion bounded,
And slew the slanderer of her fame.

She wept, delivered from her danger ;
But when he knelt to claim her glove-
'Seek not,' she cried, 'oh! gallant stranger,
For hapless Adelgitha's love.

'For he is in a foreign far land

Whose arms should now have set me free;
And I must wear the willow garland
For him that's dead or false to me.'

'Nay! say not that his faith is tainted!'
He raised his vizor-at the sight
She fell into his arms and fainted;
It was indeed her own true knight !

T. Campbell.

CLXII.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

HE melancholy days are come, the saddest of

the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie

dead;

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs

the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day:

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light, and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers.

Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of

ours.

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower* and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty

stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter

home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

* Wind-flower, the anemone.

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance

late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no

more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side;

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of

ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. W. C. Bryant.

CLXIII.

ONE BY ONE.

NE by one the sands are flowing,
One by one the moments fall;
Some are coming, some are going,—
Do not strive to grasp them all.

One by one thy duties wait thee,
Let thy whole strength go to each ;

Let no future dreams elate thee,

Learn thou first what these can teach.

One by one, bright gifts from Heaven,
Joys are sent thee here below;
Take them readily when given,
Ready be to let them go.

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee:
Do not fear an arméd band;

One will fade as others reach thee,

Shadows passing through the land.

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