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Heard the whispering of the pine- Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!"

trees,

Heard the lapping of the water,

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Sounds of music, words of wonder;
"Minne-wawa!" said the pine-trees,
Mudway-aushka!" said the water.
Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee,
Flitting through the dusk of evening,
With the twinkle of its candle
Lighting up the brakes and bushes,
And he sang the song of children,
Sang the song Nokomis taught him:
"Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly,
Little, flitting, white-fire insect,
Little, dancing, white-fire creature,

Saw the moon rise from the water Rippling, rounding from the water, Saw the flecks and shadows on it, Whispered, "What is that, Nokomis?"

And the good Nokomis answered:
"Once a warrior, very angry,
Seized his grandmother, and threw
her

Up into the sky at midnight;
Right against the moon he threw her
'T is her body that you see there."
Saw the rainbow in the heaven,
In the eastern sky, the rainbow,

Whispered, "What is that, Noko- | Learned of every bird its language,

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A LEGEND.

IN mediæval Rome, I know not where, There stood an image with its arm in air,

And on its lifted finger, shining clear, A golden ring with the device, "Strike

here!"

With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,

And gold the bread and viands manifold.

Around it, silent, motionless, and sad,

Greatly the people wondered, though Were seated gallant knights in armor

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A secret stairway leading under The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;

ground;

Down this he passed into a spacious Then from the table, by his greed

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“That which I am, I am; my fatal | Shattering the lambent jewel on the

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The image is the Adversary old, Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;

Our lusts and passions are the downward stair

That leads the soul from a diviner air;
The archer, Death; the flaming jewel,
Life;
Terrestrial gods, the goblet and the
knife;

The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone

By avarice have been hardened into stone;

The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf

Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.

From MORITURI SALUTAMUS.

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