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And these - for beauty was the rule
The polished pavements, hard and cool,
Redoubled, like a crystal pool.

And there the odorous feast was spread;
The fruity fragrance widely shed
Seemed to the floating music wed.
Seven angels, like the Pleiad seven,
Their lips to silver clarions given,

Blew welcome round the walls of heaven.

In skyey garments, silky thin,
The glad retainers floated in

A thousand forms, and yet no din:
And from the visage of the Lord,
Like splendor from the Orient poured,
A smile illumined all the board.

Far flew the music's circling sound;
Then floated back, with soft rebound,
To join, not mar, the converse round,
Sweet notes, that, melting, still increased,
Such as ne'er cheered the bridal feast
Of king in the enchanted East.

Did any great door ope or close,
It seemed the birth-time of repose,
The faint sound died where it arose;
And they who passed from door to door,
Their soft feet on the polished floor
Met their soft shadows, - nothing more.

Then once again the groups were drawn
Through corridors, or down the lawn,
Which bloomed in beauty like a dawn.
Where countless fountains leapt alway,
Veiling their silver heights in spray,
The choral people held their way.

There, midst the brightest, brightly shone
Dear forms he loved in years agone,
The earliest loved, the earliest flown.
He heard a mother's sainted tongue,
A sister's voice, who vanished young,
While one still dearer sweetly sung !

No further might the scene unfold;
The gazer's voice could not withhold;
The very rapture made him bold:
He cried aloud, with claspéd hands,
"O happy fields! O happy bands!
Who reap the never-failing lands.

"O master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,

So I may leave these fields of pain!

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...

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

THE RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS.
HE was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation
A godly, thorough Reformation,
Which always must be carried on
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies ;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;

Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short but simple annals of the poor."-GRAY.

1.

My loved, my honored, much-respected friend, No mercenary bard his homage pays :

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To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. | Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the even

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The soupe their only hawkie does afford,

That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,

Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear;

How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the While circling Time moves round in an eternal bell.

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sphere.

XVII.

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide,

Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But, haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;

And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

XVIII.

Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest : The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide ; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.

XIX.

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God!" And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind : What is a lordling's pomp?-a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!

XX.

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet

content!

And, O, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.

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