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Every moment of the night —
Forever changing places-
And they put out the star-light

With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial

One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,

They have found to be the best)

Comes down-still down- and down

With its centre on the crown

Of a mountain's eminence,

While its wide circumference

In easy drapery falls

Over hamlets, over halls,

Wherever they may be

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O'er the strange woods- - o'er the sea —

Over spirits on the wing

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Over every drowsy thing -
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light

And then, how deep!-oh, deep
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering

Is soaring in the skies,

With the tempests as they toss,
Like almost anything

Or a yellow Albatross.

They use that moon no more
For the same end as before -
Videlicet a tent -

Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.

BIS

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IN spring of youth it was my lot

To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody —

Thenah, then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

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Nor Love

although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining-

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

SONG.

SAW thee on the bridal day,

When a burning blush came o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light

(Whatever it might be)

Was all on Earth my aching sight

Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame

As such it well may pass ·

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,

When that deep blush would come o'er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee.

TO M. L. S

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F all who hail thy presence as the morningOf all to whom thine absence is the night The blotting utterly from out high heaven The sacred sun of all who, weeping, bless thee Hourly for hope for life — ah! above all, For the resurrection of deep-buried faith In Truth in Virtue in Humanity Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen

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At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes —
Of all who owe thee most- whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship-oh, remember
The truest the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think

His spirit is communing with an angel's.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD.

HY soul shall find itself alone

'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tomb-stone Not one, of all the crowd, to pry

Into thine hour of secresy.

Be silent in that solitude

Which is not loneliness-for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee-and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.

The night-tho' clear-shall frown-
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given―
But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee forever.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—

Now are visions ne'er to vanish

From thy spirit shall they pass

No more-like dew-drops from the grass.

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