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4. Then when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather-blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be:
Emblem of happiness!

Bless'd is thy dwelling-place!

O to abide in the desert with thee!

James Hogg (1772-1835).

THE HOLLY-TREE.

1. O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly-tree?

The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves,

Ordered by an Intelligence so wise

As might confound the atheist's sophistries.

2. Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;

No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;

But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

3. I love to view these things with curious eyes
And moralize;

And in the wisdom of the holly-tree
Can emblems see

Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme
Such as may profit in the after-time.

4. So, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,

To those who on my leisure would intrude

Reserved and rude,

Gentle at home amid my friends, I'd be

Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.

5. And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know, Some harshness show,

All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,

Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.

6. And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,

The holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly-tree?

7. So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young

More grave than they,

and gay,

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.

Robert Southey (1774-1843).

LINES WRITTEN IN SICKNESS.

Oh, Death! if there be quiet in thine arms,
And I must cease-gently, O gently come
To me! and let my soul learn no alarms,

But strike me, ere a shriek can echo, dumb,
Senseless, and breathless.-And thou, sickly life,
If the decree be writ that I must die,
Do thou be guilty of no needless strife,

Nor pull me downwards to mortality,
When it were fitter I should take a flight-
But whither? Holy Pity, hear, oh hear!
And lift me to some far-off skyey sphere,
Where I may wander in celestial light:
Might it be so-then would my spirit fear

To quit the things I have so loved, when seen-
The air, the pleasant sun, the summer green--

Knowing how few would shed one kindly tear,
Or keep in mind that I had ever been?

Thomas Campbell (1777 — 1844).

THE LAST MAN.

1. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,

The sun himself must die,Before this mortal shall assume Its immortality!

I saw a vision in my sleep,

That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of time!

I saw the last of human mould,
That shall creation's death behold,
As Adam saw her prime!

2. The sun's eye had a sickly glare,---
The earth with age was wan,-
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man!

Some had expired in fight,—the brands
Still rusted in their bony hands,-
In plague and famine some;

Earth's cities had no sound nor tread;
And ships were drifting, with the dead,
To shores where all was dumb!

3. Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood,
With dauntless words and high,

That shook the sere leaves from the wood,
As if a storm passed by:-

Saying, we're twins in death, proud sun!
Thy face is cold,-thy race is run-
"Tis mercy bids thee go;

For thou, ten thousand thousand years,

Hast seen the tide of human tears,

That shall no longer flow.

4. What though, beneath thee, man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill,—

And arts that made fire, flood, and earth
The vassals of his will?

Yet mourn I not thy parted sway,
Thou dim discrownèd king of day!
For all those trophied arts

And triumphs that, beneath thee, sprang,
Healed not a passion or a pang
Entailed on human hearts.

5. Go-let oblivion's curtain fall
Upon the stage of men,

Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life's tragedy again!

Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack
Of pain, anew, to writhe,—
Stretched in disease's shapes abhorred,
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe!
6. Even I am weary, in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;

Test of all sumless agonies,
Behold not me expire!

My lips, that speak thy dirge of death--
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath
To see thou shalt not boast:

The eclipse of nature spreads my pall,—
The majesty of darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!

7. This spirit shall return to Him
Who gave its heavenly spark;
Yet think not, sun, it shall be dim,
When thou thyself art dark.
No! it shall live again,—and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,—
By Him recalled to breath,

Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of victory,

And took the sting from death!

8. Go, sun! while mercy holds me up
On nature's awful waste,

To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste-
Go!-tell the night, that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On earth's sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality,
Or shake his trust in God!

Thomas Campbell (1777 - 1844).

THE TWO FOUNTAINS.

1. I saw, from yonder silent cave,

Two fountains running side by side;
The one was Memory's limpid wave,
The other cold Oblivion's tide.

"O Love!" said I, in thoughtless dream,

pass'd,

As o'er my lips the Lethe1
"Here in this dark and chilly stream,

Be all my pains forgot at last."

2. But who could bear that gloomy blank,
Where joy was lost as well as pain?
Quickly of Memory's fount I drank,
And brought the past all back again;
And said, "O Love! whate'er my lot,

Still let this soul to thee be true-
Rather than have one bliss forgot,
Be all my pains remember'd too!"
Thomas Moore (1779 — 1852).

1 Lēthē, in mythology, one of the rivers of hell, said to cause forgetfulness

of the past to all who drank of its waters.

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