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In this brook that flows lazily by

I believe that one tittlebat dwells, For I saw something jump at a fly

As I lay here and long'd for Bow Bells.

Yonder cattle are grazing-it's clear

From the bob of their heads up and down ;—

But I cannot love cattle down here

As I should if I met them in town.

Poets say that each pastoral breeze

Bears a melody laden with spells; But I don't find the music in these

That I find in the tone of Bow Bells.

I am partial to trees, as a rule;

And the rose is a beautiful flower.

(Yes, I once read a ballad at school

Of a rose that was wash'd in a shower.)
But, although I may doat on the rose,
I can scarcely believe that it smells
Quite so sweet in the bed where it grows

As when sold within sound of Bow Bells.

No; I've tried it in vain once or twice,

And I've thoroughly made up my mind That the country is all very nice

But I'd much rather mix with my kind. Yes; to-day-if I meet with a train

I will fly from these hills and these dells; And to-night I will sleep once again

(Happy thought!) within sound of Bow Bells.

THE PLOT OF A ROMANCE.

AY! there they stood on the self-same spot,

And, it might be, the self-same day;

But one was thinking and one was not,
In exactly the old, old way.

Let the proud Earl feast in his gilded halls,
But the sound of a maniac's curse

Rings ever and aye round the castle-walls
That shelter the grim Fitz-Urse.

For the gory head of a patriot sire
Shall smile on a long-lost son,
Ere an island home shall be girt with fire,
And a victory lost and won.

There's an empty chair in the ingle-nook,
And a trivet against the wall ;

There's a ghastly stain in the Domesday book,

And a mystery shroudeth all.

Old Peter the Beadsman breathes a sigh
As he passes the churchyard lone,

Where the bones of the best and the bravest lie,

All under a milk-white stone.

But winter and summer there lies a blot

On the scutcheon of grim Fitz-Urse;

And the two stood there, on the self-same spot, As I said in the opening verse.

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The million airs that you pervade in English, French, and

Spanish.

I hold your dark Pepitas and your mules immensely dear,

But you begin to bore me, O eternal Muleteer!

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