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After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew the casement curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats,
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking, she heard the night-fowl crow;

The cock sung out an hour ere light ;
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her; without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely, moated grange.

She only said, "The day is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarled bark; For leagues no other tree did dark The level waste, the rounding gray.

MARIANA.

She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and
In the white curtain, to and fro,

She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,

away,

And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.

She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;

She said, "I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!"

All day within the dreamy house,

The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue-fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd

Or from the crevice peer'd about.

Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

3

The sparrows' chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof

The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then, said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
Oh God, that I were dead!"

TENNYSON.

PATRIOTISM.

BREATHES there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,

From wandering on a foreign strand.
If such there breathe, go, mark him well,
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,

;

AGE AND YOUTH.

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down.
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

SCOTT.

5

AGE AND YOUTH.

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "The few locks that are left you are gray;

You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man :
Now tell me the reason, I

pray?"

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, "I remember'd that youth would fly fast,

And abused not my health and my vigour at first,
That I never might need them at last."

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "And pleasures with youth pass away,

And yet you lament not the days that are gone:

Now tell me the reason, I

pray?"

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, "I remember'd that youth could not last;

I thought of the future, whatever I did,
That I never might grieve for the past.”

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "And life must be hastening away;

You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death: Now tell me the reason, I pray?"

"I am cheerful, young man," Father William replied, "Let the cause thy attention engage,

In the days of my youth I remember'd my God,
And he hath not forgotten my age."

SOUTHEY.

THE WATERFOWL.

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their hazy depths dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way.

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of reedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocky billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean's side?

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