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A moment there, no lovelier scene On England's Wye, or Scotland's Tay, Would charm your gaze a summer's day.

And on it glides, by grove and glen, Dark woodlands and the homes of men,

With now a ferry, now a mill:
Till, deep and calm, its waters fill
The channels round that gem of isles
Sacred to captives' woes and wiles,
And, gleeful half, half eddying back.
Blend with the lordly Merrimac:
And Merrimac whose tide is strong
Rolls gently, with its waves along,
Monadnock's stream that, coy and
fair,

Has come, its larger life to share,
And, to the sea, doth safe deliver
Contoocook's bright and brimming
river!

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Our death is gradual, like to these: We die with every waning day; There is no waft of sorrow's breeze But bears some heart-leaf slow away!

Up and on to the vast To Be Our life is going eternally! Less of earth than we had last year Throbs in your veins and throbs in mine,

But the way to heaven is growing clear,

While the gates of the city fairer

shine,

And the day that our latest treasures flee,

Wide they will open for you and me!

HEROES.

THE winds that once the Argo bore Have died by Neptune's ruined shrines,

And her hull is the drift of the deep sea-floor,

Though shaped of Pelion's tallest pines.

You may seek her crew on every isle Fair in the foam of Ægean seas,

But, out of their rest, no charm can

wile

Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.

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FRANCIS QUARLES.

THE WORLD.

SHE'S empty: hark! she sounds: there's nothing there
But noise to fill thy ear;

Thy vain inquiry can at length but find

A blast of murmuring wind:

It is a cask that seems as full as fair,

But merely tunned with air.

Fond youth, go build thy hopes on better grounds;
The soul that vainly founds

Her joys upon this world, but feeds on empty sounds.

She's empty: hark! she sounds; there's nothing in't:
The spark-engendering flint

Shall sooner melt, and hardest raunce shall first
Dissolve and quench thy thirst,

Ere this false world shall still thy stormy breast
With smooth-faced calms of rest.

Thou mayst as well expect meridian light

From shades of black-mouthed night,
As in this empty world to find a full delight.

She's empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis void and vast;
What if some flattering blast

Of fatuous honor should perchance be there,
And whisper in thine ear?

It is but wind, and blows but where it list,
And vanisheth like mist.

Poor honor earth can give! What generous mind
Would be so base to bind

Her heaven-bred soul, a slave to serve a blast of wind?

She's empty; hark! she sounds: 'tis but a ball
For fools to play withal;

The painted film but of a stronger bubble,

That's lined with silken trouble.

It is a world whose work and recreation

Is vanity and vexation;

A hag, repaired with vice-complexioned paint,

A quest-house of complaint.

It is a saint, a fiend; worse fiend when most a saint.

She's empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis vain and void.
What's here to be enjoyed

But grief and sickness, and large bills of sorrow,
Drawn now and crossed to-morrow?

Or, what are men but puffs of dying breath,

Revived with living death?

Fond youth, O build thy hopes on surer grounds

Than what dull flesh propounds:

Trust not this hollow world; she's empty: hark! she sounds.

ON MAN.

My darkened soul, but they were false alarms;

AT our creation, but the Word was I thought I'd had fair Rachel in my

said;

And we were made;

No sooner were, but our false hearts

did swell

With pride, and fell:

How slight is man! At what an easy

cost

He's made and lost!

bed,

But I had blear-eyed Leah in my

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