I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man. 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 check'd him while he spoke; yet could he speak, Alas! I would not check. For reasons not to love him once I sought, To vex myself and him: I now would give Who lately lived for me, and when he found He hid his face amid the shades of death. Who wasted his for me: but mine returns, With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep, Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years Merciful God! such was his latest prayer, Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold, Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, His name and life's brief date. Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be, 1868 Edition. 48. RICHARD LOVELACE. To Lucasta. Going to the Wars. TELL me not, (sweet,) I am unkind, Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind True: a new Mistress now I chase, And with a stronger faith embrace Yet this inconstancy is such, 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, |