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When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.

Sit thee there, and send abroad
With a mind self-overawed

Fancy, high-commissioned: - send her!
She has vassals to attend her;
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May
From dewy sward or thorny spray;

All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth;
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it;
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;

thou shalt hear

Sweet birds antheming the morn;
And in the same moment

- hark!

"T is the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Everything is spoilt by use:

Where's the cheek that doth not fade,

Too much gazed at? Where's the maid

Whose lip mature is ever new?

Where's the eye, however blue,

Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let then winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,

Ere the god of torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet
While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.

Of the Fancy's silken leash;

Break the mesh

Quickly break her prison-string,
And such joys as these she'll bring:
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.

ON DEATH

BY JOHN KEATS

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.

How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom, which is but to awake.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

BY FRANCIS SCOTT KEY

O say, can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still

there;

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream;
"T is the star-spangled banner! O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps'

pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heaven-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then

conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "In God is our trust";

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

RECESSIONAL

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line -
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies
The Captains and the Kings depart -
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

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