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O! that this lovely vale were mine,
Then, from glad youth to calm decline,
My years would gently glide;
Hope would rejoice in endless dreams,
And memory's oft-returning gleams
By peace be sanctified.

There would unto my soul be given,
From presence of that gracious heaven,

A piety sublime!

And thoughts would come of mystic mood,
To make in this deep solitude

Eternity of Time!

And did I ask to whom belonged
This vale? I feel that I have wronged
Nature's most gracious soul!

She spreads her glories o'er the earth,
And all her children, from their birth,
Are joint-heirs of the whole!

Yea, long as Nature's bumblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
By sinful sacrifice;

Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch, and his throne

Is built amid the skies!

PROFESSOR WILSON.

Chorus from Hellas.

66

he sings of what the world will be

When the years have died away."

TENNYSON.

THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls its fountains

Against the morning-star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

O write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be!
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy

Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtler sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued :

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears, and symbol flowers.

O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,
O might it die or rest at last!

SHELLEY.

The School-Mistress,

IN IMITATION OF SPENSER.

Ан me! full sorely is my heart forlorn,
To think how modest worth neglected lies;
While partial Fame doth with her blasts adorn
Such deeds alone, as pride and pomp disguise;
Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprize :
Lend me thy clarion, Goddess! let me try
To sound the praise of merit, ere it dies;
Such as I oft have chaunced to espy,
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity.

In every village marked with little spire,
Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we School-mistress name;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame;
They grieven sore in piteous durance pent,
Awed by the power of this relentless dame;
And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconned, are sorely shent.

And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree,

Which Learning near her little dome did stowe ;

Whilom a twig of small regard to see,

Though now so wide its waving branches flow

And work the simple vassals mickle woe;

For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew, But their limbs shuddered, and their pulse beat low; And as they looked they found their horror grew, And shaped it into rods, and tingled at the view.

So have I seen (who has not, may conceive)
A lifeless phantom near a garden placed;
So doth it wanton birds of peace bereave,
Of sport, of song, of pleasure, of repast;

They start, they stare, they wheel, they look aghast;
Sad servitude! such comfortless annoy

May no bold Briton's riper age e'er taste!
Ne superstition clog his dance of joy,

Ne vision empty, vain, his native bliss destroy.

Near to this dome is found a patch so green,
On which the tribe their gambols do display;
And at the door imprisoning board is seen,
Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray;
Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day!

The noises intermixed, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray;
Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound,
And eyes
her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblem right meet of decency does yield:
Her apron dyed in grain, is blue, I trowe,
As is the hare-bell that adorns the field:

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