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What hope is here for modern rhyme
To him who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshortened in the tract of time?

These mortal lullabies of pain

May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden's locks, Or when a thousand moons shall wane,

A man upon a stall may find,

And, passing, turn the page that tells
A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darkened ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.

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Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old; Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land,Ring in the Christ that is to be.

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The churl in spirit, up or down
Along the scale of ranks, through all,
To him who grasps a golden ball,
By blood a king, at heart a clown;

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil

His want in forms for fashion's sake,
Will let his coltish nature break
At seasons through the gilded pale.

For who can always act? But he,
To whom a thousand memories call,
Not being less but more than all
The gentleness he seemed to be,

Best seemed the thing he was; and joined

Each office of the social hour

To noble manners, as the flower And native growth of noble mind.

Nor ever narrowness or spite, Or villain fancy fleeting by,

Drew in the expression of an eye
Where God and nature met in light.

And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soiled with all ignoble use.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

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"Softly woo away her breath."

SOFTLY WOO AWAY HER
BREATH.

@OFTLY woo away her breath,
Gentle Death!

Let her leave thee with no strife,
Tender, mournful, murmuring Life:
She hath seen her happy day;
She hath had her bud and blossom;
Now she pales and shrinks away,
Earth, into thy gentle bosom!

She hath done her bidding here,
Angels dear!

Bear her perfect soul above,
Seraph of the skies, sweet Love!
Good she was, and fair in youth,
And her mind was seen to soar,
And her heart was wed to truth;
Take her, then, forevermore,

Forever, evermore!

BRYAN W. PROCTER.

PARTING AND DEATH.

(From Michael Angelo.")

ARTING with friends is temporary death, A

THE PHANTOM.

GAIN I sit within the mansion,
In the old familiar seat;

As all death is. We see no more their And shade and sunshine chase each other

faces,

Nor hear their voices, save in memory;

But messages of love give us assurance
That we are not forgotten. Who shall say
That from the world of spirits, comes no
greeting,

No message of remembrance? It may be
The thoughts that visit us, we know not
whence,

Sudden as inspiration, are the whispers
Of disembodied spirits, speaking to us
As friends, who wait outside a prison wall,
Through the barred windows speak to those
within.

As quiet as the lake that lies beneath me,
As quiet as the tranquil sky above me,
As quiet as a heart that beats no more,
This convent seems. Above, below, all peace:
Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends,
Are with me here, and the tumultuous world
Makes no more noise than the remotest planet.
O gentle spirit, unto the third circle

O'er the carpet at my feet.

But the sweet-brier's arms have wrestled upwards

In the summers that are past,

And the willow trails its branches lower
Than when I saw them last.

They strive to shut the sunshine wholly
From out the haunted room;

To fill the house, that once was joyful,
With silence and with gloom.

And many kind, remembered faces
Within the doorway come;
Voices, that wake the sweeter music
Of one that now is dumb.

They sing, in tones that are as glad as ever,
The songs she loved to hear;
They braid the rose in summer garlands,
Whose flowers to her were dear.

And still, her footsteps in the passage,
Her blushes at the door,

Of heaven among the blessed souls ascended, Her timid words of maiden welcome,

Who living in the faith and dying for it,
Have gone to their reward, I do not sigh
For thee as being dead, but for myself
That I am still alive. Turn those dear eyes,
Once so benignant to me, upon mine,
That open to their tears such uncontrolled
And such continual issue. Still awhile
Have patience; I will come to thee at last.
A few more goings in and out these doors,
A few more chimings of these convent bells,
A few more prayers, a few more sighs and tears,
And the long agony of this life will end,
And I shall be with thee. If I am wanting
To thy well-being, as thou art to mine,
Have patience; I will come to thee at last.
Ye minds that loiter in these cloister gardens,
Or wander far above the city walls,
Bear unto him this message, that I ever
Or speak or think of him, or weep for him.
By unseen hands uplifted in the night
Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud
Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad,
And wafted up to heaven. It fades away,
And melts into the air. Ah, would that I
Could thus be wafted unto thee, Francesco,
A cloud of white, an incorporeal spirit!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

Come back to me once more.

And, all forgetful of my sorrow,

Unmindful of my pain,

I think she has but newly left me,
And soon will come again.

She stays without, perchance, a moment,
To dress her dark-brown hair;

I hear the rustle of her garments,
Her light step on the stair:

O fluttering heart! control thy tumult,
Lest eyes profane should see
My cheeks betray the rush of rapture
Her coming brings to me!

She tarries long; but lo! a whisper
Beyond the open door,

And, gliding through the quiet sunshine,
A shadow on the floor!

Ah! 'tis the whispering pine that calls me,
The vine, whose shadow strays;
And my patient heart must still await her,
Nor chide her long delays.

But my heart grows sick with weary waiting,
As many a time before;

Her foot is ever at the threshold,
Yet never passes o'er.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

SONNET.

WEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy And happy days with thee come not again;

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his anger;

Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants,

Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless.

Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands;

Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway and wicket,

Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo

Softly, the words of the Lord: "The poor ye always have with you."

Thither, by night and day, came the sister of Mercy. The dying

Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there

Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor,

Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and apostles,

Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance.

Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial,

Into whose shining gates their spirits ere long would enter.

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and silent,

Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse.

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden,

That the dying once more might rejoice in their splendor and beauty.

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east wind,

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes
from the belfry of Christ Church,
While, intermingled with these, across the
meadows were wafted

Sounds of psalms that were sung by the
Swedes at their church in Wicaco.
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the
hour on her spirit;

Something within her said: "At length thy trials are ended;"

And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness.

Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants,

Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and in silence

Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their faces,

Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the roadside.

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,

Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for her presence

Fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the walls of a prison.

And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler,

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night time;

Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,

Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder

Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowers dropped from her fingers, And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the morning;

Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible auguish

That the dying heard it and started up from their pillows.

On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man ;

And she paused on her way to gather the fair- Long, and thin, and gray, were the locks that

est among them,

shaded his temples;

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