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Solemn hours, wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud!

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-rock'd cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the Year: be calm and mild,
Trembling hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps,-but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.

SHELLEY.

SONG OF ARIEL.

66

[FROM THE TEMPEST."]

OME unto these yellow sands,

COM

And then take hands,—

Curtsied when you have and kiss'd;

(The wild waves whist)—

Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
Hark, hark!

Bough, wough. (dispersedly)
The watch-dogs bark.

Bough, wough. (dispersedly)

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticleer

Cry, cock-a-doodle-doo.

SHAKESPEARE.

W

SONNET.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

HEN I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days in this dark world and

wide;

And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he, returning, chide; "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gift; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his

state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

MILTON.

SONG ON MAY MORNING.

OW the bright Morning-Star, day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail! bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire:
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long..

MILTON.

ULYSSES.

T little profits that an idle king,

By his still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all life I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and know; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail :
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought
with me-

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads-you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks :
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the

deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we
are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

TENNYSON.

FU

SONG OF ARIEL.

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[FROM THE TEMPEST."]

'ULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Hark! now I hear them,―ding-dong bell!

SHAKESPEARE.

S

TO AUTUMN.

EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless

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