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"Hail, bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen few,

Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive."

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XXIX.

THANKFULNESS.

THERE is no thankfulness more deep than this,
To love and love with ever-glad increase,
To nestle in the heart with fluttering bliss
And think that now is the full tide of peace;

Yet still to find, with each sun-circled hour,

A higher right to love, unhoped before,

A fuller insight, a serener power,

That widens down the soul's unfathomed core:

To feel that we are blest is thankfulness,

And thereby with exulting faith to know

That every

human heart its kind must bless

With love, which, garnered up, rusts into woe,

But, freely given, always turns again,

And, for our flowers, brings us ripened grain.

--

XXX.

IN ABSENCE.

THESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear,
Did I not know, that, in the early spring,

When wild March winds upon their errands sing,

Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air,

Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair, They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks

From icy cares, even as thy clear looks

Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care :
When drops with welcome rain the April day,
My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes,
Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay,
As loath to fall out of those happy skies;
Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May,
That comes with steady sun when April dies.

XXXI.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

He stood upon the world's broad threshold; wide

The din of battle and of slaughter rose;

He saw God stand upon the weaker side,

That sank in seeming loss before its foes;

Many there were who made great haste and sold
Unto the cunning enemy their swords,

He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold,
And, underneath their soft and flowery words,
Heard the cold serpent hiss; therefore he went
And humbly joined him to the weaker part,
Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content
So he could be the nearer to God's heart,

And feel its solemn pulses sending blood
Through all the wide-spread veins of endless good.

XXXII.

THE STREET.

THEY pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro,

Hugging their bodies round them, like thin shrouds Wherein their souls were buried long ago:

They trampled on their youth, and faith, and love, They cast their hope of human-kind away,

With Heaven's clear messages they madly strove,

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And conquered, and their spirits turned to clay :
Lo! how they wander round the world, their grave,
Whose ever-gaping maw by such is fed,
Gibbering at living men, and idly rave,

"We, only, truly live, but ye are dead."
Alas! poor fools, the anointed eye may trace
A dead soul's epitaph in every face!

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