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CHARLES THE TWELFTH.

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warrior's pride,

N what foundation stands the | But did not Chance at length her error mend?
Did no subverted empire mark his end,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress and a dubious hand;

How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide.

A frame of adamant, a soul He left the name at which the world
of fire,

pale

No dangers fright him and To point a moral or adorn a tale.

no labors tire;

O'er love, o'er fear, extends

his wide domain.

Unconquered lord of pleasure

and of pain;

No joys to him pacific sceptres yield;

grew

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War sounds the trump: he rushes to the The cottage windows blazed through twilight

field;

bine,

gloom,

Happy time. for me

Behold surrounding kings their powers com- I heeded not their summons.
It was indeed for all of us
It was a time of rapture. Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six; I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse

And one capitulate, and one resign;

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain :

Think nothing gained," he cries, "till That cares not for his home. All shod with

naught remain;

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the polar sky."
The march begins in military state,
And nations on his eye suspended wait;
Stern Famine guards the solitary coast,
And Winter barricades the realms of frost;
He comes not Want and Cold his course
delay;

Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day.
The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands,
Condemned a needy supplicant to wait
While ladies interpose and slaves debate.

steel,

We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures-the resounding
horn,

The pack loud-chiming and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew,

And not a voice was idle: with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars

Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the I love-oh how I love!—to ride

west

The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous
throng

To cut across the reflex of a star

That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spin-
ning still

The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had
rolled

With visible motion her diurnal round.

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

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On the fierce foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'-west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me,
For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise
rolled,

And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outery wild
As welcomed to life the ocean-child.

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EEK not with gold or glittering gem
My simple heart to move:

To share a kingly diadem

Would never gain my love.

The heart that's formed in virtue's mould
For heart should be exchanged;
The love that once is bought with gold
May be by gold estranged.

Can wealth relieve the lab'ring mind
Or calm the soul to rest?
What healing balm can riches find

To soothe the bleeding breast?
'Tis love, and love alone, has power
To bless without alloy,

To cheer affliction's darkest hour
And brighten every joy.

THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY

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It should within no other things contain
But what are useful, necessary, plain ;
Methinks 'tis nauseous, and I'd ne'er endure,
The needless pomp of gaudy furniture;
A little garden grateful to the eye,
And a cool rivulet run murmuring by,
On whose delicious banks a stately row
Of shady limes or sycamores should grow,
At th' end of which a silent study placed
Should be with all the noblest authors graced-
Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines
Immortal wit and solid learning shines;
Sharp Juvenal, and amorous Ovid too,
Who all the turns of love's soft passion

knew:

He that with judgment reads his charming lines,

In which strong art with stronger nature joins,

Must grant his fancy does the best excel,
His thoughts so tender and expressed so

well;

With all those moderns, men of steady sense,
Esteemed for learning and for eloquence.
In some of these, as fancy should advise,
I'd always take my morning exercise;

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And waged with Fortune an eternal war?

Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,

And Poverty's unconquerable bar, In life's low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropped into the grave unpitied and

unknown?

And yet the languor of inglorious days
Not equally oppressive is to all:

Him who ne'er listened to the voice of praise

The silence of neglect can ne'er appal. There are who, deaf to mad Ambition's call,

Would shrink to hear the obstreperous

trump of Fame,

Supremely blest if to their portion fall Health, competence and peace. Nor higher

aim

How forth the minstrel fared in days of

yore,

Right glad of heart, though homely in ar

ray,

His waving locks and beard all hoary

gray,

While from his bending shoulder decent hung

His harp, the sole companion of his way, Which to the whistling wind responsive

rung;

And ever, as he went, some merry lay he sung.

"O ye wild groves, oh where is now your bloom"

The Muse interprets thus his tender thought

"Your flowers, your verdure and your balmy gloom

Of late so grateful in the hour of drought? Why do the birds, that song and rapture brought

To all your bowers, their mansions now forsake?

Ah, why has fickle Chance this ruin wrought?

For now the storm howls mournful through the brake.

Had he whose simple tale these artless lines And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeproclaim.

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less flake.

Yet such the destiny of all on earth— So flourishes and fades majestic Man:

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