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Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

THOMAS HOOD.

1798-1845.

Past and Present.

I REMEMBER, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window, where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day ;-
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light;
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum, on his birthday:
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing.

My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember,

The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.
It was a childish ignorance,-
But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm further off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.

I

COME,

MRS. HEMANS.

1798-1855.

The Voice of Spring.

I come! ye have called me long,

I come o'er the mountains with light and song;
Ye may trace my steps o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in shadowy grass,

By the green leaves opening as Ι
I pass.

I have breathed on the south, and the chestnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers;

And the ancient graves, and the falling fanes,

Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains.
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin, or the tomb!

I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy north,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the stormy sea,

And the reindeer bounds through the pasture free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep-blue sky;
From the night-bird's lay, through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note, by the Iceland akes,
Where the dark fir bough into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain--
They are rolling on to the silvery main,

They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray on the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.

Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may now be your home;
Ye of the rose-cheek, and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly;
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sunshine; I may not stay!

BRYAN WALTER PROCTOR:

1790

The Sea.

THE sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;

If a storm should come, and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love (oh! how I love) to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,

Full fifty summers a sailor's life,

With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild unbounded sea!

LORD MACAULAY:

1800-1859.

The Defence of the Bridge against the Tuscan Army.
BUT the Consul's brow was sad,

And the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe.
"Their van will be upon us

Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge,
What hope to save the town?"
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?

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