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I walk'd with one I loved two and thir- | And fairer she, but ah now soon to die!

ty years ago.

All along the valley while I walk'd to-day, The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away;

For all along the valley, down thy rocky

bed

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And some are pretty enough,
And some are poor indeed;
And now again the people
Call it but a weed.

REQUIESCAT.

FAIR is her cottage in its place,

Her quiet dream of life this hour may

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HE rose at dawn and, fired with hope,
Shot o'er the seething harbor-bar,
And reach'd the ship and caught the
rope,

And whistled to the morning star.

And while he whistled long and loud
He heard a fierce mermaiden cry,
"O boy, tho' thou art young and proud,
I see the place where thou wilt lie.
"The sands and yeasty surges mix

In caves about the dreary bay,
And on thy ribs the limpet sticks,
And in thy heart the scrawl shall play."
"Fool," he answer'd, "death is sure

To those that stay and those that roam,
But I will nevermore endure

To sit with empty hands at home.

"My mother clings about my neck,

My sisters crying 'Stay for shame'; My father raves of death and wreck,

They are all to blame, they are all to blame.

"God help me! save I take my part
Of danger on the roaring sea,
A devil rises in my heart,

Far worse than any death to me."

THE ISLET.

"WHITHER, O whither, love, shall we go,
For a score of sweet little summers or so?
The sweet little wife of the singer said,
On the day that follow'd the day she
was wed,

"Whither, O whither, love, shall we go?"
And the singer shaking his curly head
Turn'd as he sat, and struck the keys
There at his right with a sudden crash,
Singing, "And shall it be over the seas

Where yon broad water sweetly slow- With a crew that is neither rude nor rash

ly glides.

It sees itself from thatch to base

Dream in the sliding tides.

But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek'd,
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak’d,
With a satin sail of a ruby glow,

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LITERARY SQUABBLES.

Ah God! the petty fools of rhyme
That shriek and sweat in pygmy wars
Before the stony face of Time,
And look'd at by the silent stars :

Who hate each other for a song,
And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brethren in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite :

And strain to make an inch of room
For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom
On them and theirs and all things here:

When one small touch of Charity
Could lift them nearer God-like state
Than if the crowded Orb should cry
Like those who cried Diana great:

And I too, talk, and lose the touch
I talk of. Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such
Is perfect stillness when they brawl.

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"My ringlet, my ringlet,
That art so golden-gay,
Now never chilling touch of Time
Can turn thee silver-gray;
And a lad may wink, and a girl may hint,
And a fool may say his say;

For my doubts and fears were all amiss,
And I swear henceforth by this and this,
That a doubt will only come for a kiss,

And a fear to be kiss'd away.' "Then kiss it, love, and put it by: If this can change, why so can I.'

II.

O Ringlet, O Ringlet,

I kiss'd you night and day,
And Ringlet, O Ringlet,
You still are golden-gay,
But Ringlet, O Ringlet,

You should be silver-gray:
For what is this which now I'm told,
I that took you for true gold,
She that gave you 's bought and sold,
Sold, sold.

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Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,

Scatter the blossom under her feet! Break, happy land, into earlier flowers! Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers!

Blazon your mottoes of blessing and prayer!

Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours!

Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare!
Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers!
Flames, on the windy headland flare !
Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire!
Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air!
Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire!
Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and
higher

Melt into stars for the land's desire !
Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice,
Roll as a ground-swell dash'd on the strand,
Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land,
And welcome her, welcome the land's de-
sire,

The sea-kings' daughter as happy as fair,
Blissful bride of a blissful heir,

Bride of the heir of the kings of the seaO joy to the people, and joy to the throne, Come to us, love us and make us your

own:

For Saxon or Dane or Norman we, Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be,

ODE SUNG AT THE OPENING OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.

UPLIFT a thousand voices full and sweet, In this wide hall with earth's invention stored,

And praise th' invisible universal Lord, Who lets once more in peace the nations meet,

Where Science, Art, and Labor have outpour'd

Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet.

O silent father of our Kings to be Mourn'd in this golden hour of jubilee, For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee !

The world-compelling plan was thine,
And, lo! the long laborious miles
Of Palace; lo! the giant aisles,
Rich in model and design;
Harvest-tool and husbandry,
Loom and wheel and engin'ry,
Secrets of the sullen mine,
Steel and gold, and corn and wire,
Fabric rough, or Fairy fine,
Sunny tokens of the Line,
Polar marvels, and a feast
Of wonder, out of West and East,
And shapes and hues of Art divine!
All of beauty, all of use,
That one fair planet can produce.

Brought from under every star,
Blown from over every main,
And mixt, as life is mixt with pain,

The works of peace with works of war.

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We are each all Dane in our welcome of And ruling by obeying Nature's powers, And gathering all the fruits of peace and crown'd with all her flowers.

thee,

Alexandra!

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WHILE about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries

Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, Far in the East Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted,

Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Cámulodúne, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy.

"They that scorn the tribes and call

us Britain's barbarous populaces, Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating? Shall I heed them in their anguish ? shall I brook to be supplicated? Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!

Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us?

Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering?

Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable, Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcass a skeleton, Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolf kin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated. Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Cámulodúne !

There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cássivëlaún !

"Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian! Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant. These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances,

Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a mur. mur heard aërially,

Phantom sound of blows descending, Phantom wail of women and children, moan of an enemy massacred, multitudinous agonies.

Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phan

tom bodies of horses and men ; Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary;

Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly gidThere was one who watch'd and told me dily tottering

-down their statue of Victory fell. Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall the colony Camulodúne,

Shall we deal with it as an infant ? shall we care to be pitiful? we dandle it amorously?

"Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!

While I roved about the forest, long | There they dwelt and there they rioted;

and bitterly meditating, There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony, Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses. 'Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets!

Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee, Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle,

thou shalt be the mighty one yet! Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine

the deeds to be celebrated, Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable, Thine the lands of lasting summer, manyblossoming Paradises,

Thine the North and thine the South and

thine the battle-thunder of God.' So they chanted : how shall Britain light upon auguries happier? So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now.

"Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant ! Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty,

Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated, Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine

of ruffian violators !

See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy! Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by

blood to be satiated.

Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Cámulodúne ! There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted BritonessBloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable. Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant, Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd. Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cúnobelíne ! There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay, Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy.

there-there-they dwell no more. Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary. Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable,

Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness,

Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated,

Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.

So the Queen Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted,

Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters Till her people all around the royal in her fierce volubility. Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing chariot agitated,

barbarous lineäments,

Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January, Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices, Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.

So the silent colony hearing her tumul

tuous adversaries

Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice, Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously, Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.

Out of

evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.

Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.

Perish'd many a maid and matron, many
a valorous legionary.
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London,
Verulam, Camulodúne.

IN QUANTITY.

MILTON. Alcaics.

O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies,

O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,

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