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Good-Night in the Porch (Extracts from)

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I.

DAYBREAK.

A wind came up out of the sea,

And said, "O mists, make room for me."

It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."

It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!"

It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing."

It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn."

It shouted thro' the belfry-tower,

66

Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour."

It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet, in quiet lie."

H. W. Longfellow.

II.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home :-

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Wordsworth.

III.

THE DIAL OF FLOWERS.

'Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,

By the opening and the folding flowers,
That laugh to the summer's day.

Thus had each moment its own rich hue,
And its graceful cup and bell,

In whose coloured vase might sleep the dew,
Like a pearl in an ocean-shell.

To such sweet signs might the time have flow'd

In a golden current on,

Ere from the garden, man's first abode,

The glorious guests were gone.

So might the days have been brightly told,
Those days of song and dreams-

When shepherds gathered their flocks of old
By the blue Arcadian streams.

Yet is not life, in its real flight,
Marked thus, even thus, on earth,
By the closing of one hope's delight,
And another's gentle birth?
O let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn may leave

A lingerer still for the sunset hour,

A charm for the shaded eve.

Mrs. Hemans.

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