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I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man.
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I pac'd round the haunts of my childhood.

Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother! Why were not thou born in my father's dwelling?

So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

For some they have died, and some they have

left me,

And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

1798 Edition.

47.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

The Maid's Lament.

I LOVED him not; and yet now he is gone
I feel I am alone.

I check'd him while he spoke; yet could he

speak,

Alas! I would not check.

For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought

To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love, could he but live

Who lately lived for me, and when he found
'Twas vain, in holy ground

He hid his face amid the shades of death.
I waste for him my breath

Who wasted his for me: but mine returns,
And this lorn bosom burns

With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep

Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears.

Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,
These may she never share!

Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
Than daisies in the mould,

Where children spell, athwart the churchyard

gate,

His name and life's brief date.

Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,
And oh ! pray too for me!

1868 Edition.

48.

RICHARD LOVELACE.

To Lucasta. Going to the Wars.

TELL me not, (sweet,) I am unkind,
That from the nunnery

Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.

True: a new Mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such,
As you too shall adore;

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Lov'd I not Honour more.

Carew Hazlitt's Text.

JOHN MILTON.

49. On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.

I.

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King, Of wedded Maid and Virgin-Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high counciltable

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

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