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And from the centre blazed the angry sun,
Stern as the unlash'd eye of God a-glare
O'er evening city with its boom of sin.
I do remember, as we journeyed home,
(That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains,)
With what a soothing came the naked moon.
She, like a swimmer who has found his ground,
Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud,

And plunged from the other side into the night.
I and that friend, the feeder of my soul,

Did wander up and down these banks for years,
Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths,
How sin and weeping all should pass away
In the calm sunshine of the earth's old age.
Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer's verse;
'Twas here we drank them.

Here for hours we hung

O'er the fine pants and trembles of a line.

Oft, standing on a hill's green head, we felt

Breezes of love, and joy, and melody,

Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky.
Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fed

On summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams,
O'er which the air hung silent in its joy;
With a great city lying in its smoke,

A monster sleeping in its own thick breath;
And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods
In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks,
Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs,

And sweet cots dropt in green, where children played,
To us unheard; till, gradual, all was lost

In distance-haze to a blue rim of hills,

Upon whose heads came down the closing sky.

PICTURES.

THE lark is singing in the blinding sky,

Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom sea

Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride,

And, in the fulness of his marriage joy,
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,

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Retires a space, to see how fair she looks,

Then, proud, runs up to kiss her. All is fairAll glad, from grass to sun

-One nymph slumbering lay,

A sweet dream 'neath her eyelids, her white limbs
Sinking full softly in the violets dim;

When timbrelled troops rushed past with branches green.
One in each fountain, riched with golden sands,

With her delicious face a moment seen,

And limbs faint gleaming through their watery veil.

-A grim old king,

Whose blood leapt madly when the trumpets brayed
To joyous battle 'mid a storm of steeds,
Won a rich kingdom on a battle-day;
But in the sunset he was ebbing fast,

Ringed by his weeping lords. His left hand held
His white steed, to the belly splashed with blood,
That seemed to mourn him with his drooping head;
His right, his broken brand; and in his ear
His old victorious banners flap the winds.
He called his faithful herald to his side-

"Go! tell the dead I come!" With a proud smile,
The warrior with a stab let out his soul,

Which fled, and shrieked through all the other world, "Ye dead! My master comes!" And there was pause Till the great Shade should enter.

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BAILEY.

A SUMMER NIGHT.

THE last high upward slant of sun on the trees,
Like a dead soldier's sword upon his pall,
Seems to console earth for the glory gone.
Oh! I could weep to see the day die thus;
The death-bed of a day, how beautiful!
Linger, ye clouds, one moment longer there;
Fan it to slumber with your golden wings!
Like pious prayers, ye seem to soothe its end.

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