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THE RECOLLECTION.

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of paradise.

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced;

And soothed, by every azure breath
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath
As tender as its own;

Now all the tree-tops lay asleep

Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.

How calm it was!-The silence there
By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller with her sound

The inviolable quietness ;

The breath of peace we drew

With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed, from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain-waste

To the soft flower beneath our feet,

A magic circle traced,

A spirit interfused around,

A thrilling silent life :

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To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife. And still, I felt, the centre of

The magic circle there

Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.

We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest-bough.
Each seemed as't were a little sky
Gulfed in a world below:
A firmament of purple light

Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,

And purer than the day—

In which the lovely forests grew

As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade, the neighboring lawn,

And through the dark green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn

Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above

Can never well be seen

Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green;

And all was interfused beneath

With an elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,

A softer day below.

Shelley.

ON THE HEIGHTS.

ON THE HEIGHTS.

Fold sat Freedom on the heights,

The thunders breaking at her feet :
Above her shook the starry lights :
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gathered in her prophet mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down through town and field,
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men revealed
The fulness of her face-

Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,

Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
And king-like, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth,

The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine,

Make bright our days and light our dreams,

Turning to scorn with lips divine

The falsehood of extremes!

Tennyson.

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T

TWO VOICES.

WO voices are there; one is of the sea,

One of the mountains; each a mighty voice:

In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!
There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee

Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven:
Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,
Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft :
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;
For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
That Mountain floods should thunder as before,
And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful voice be heard by thee!

Wordsworth.

SONNET.

TH

HE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our pow-

ers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ;

THE CUMBERLAND.

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn,
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Wordsworth.

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G

HONOR TO WHOM HONOR.

IVE honor to their memories, who left the pleasant strand

To shed their blood so freely for the love of father

land;

Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy church

yard grave

So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave! Samuel Ferguson.

THOSE WHO HAVE FAILED.

H

ONOR to those who have failed,

And to those whose war-vessels sank in the

sea,

And to those who sank themselves in the sea,
And to all the unknown heroes,

Equal to the greatest heroes known.

Walt Whitman,

THE CUMBERLAND.

T anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,

AT

On board the Cumberland, sloop-of-war ;

And at times from the fortress across the bay

The alarm of drums swept past,

Or a bugle-blast

From the camp on the shore.

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