RHYMES. If perhaps these rhymes of mine sound not well in strangers' ears, They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs ; For so long as words, like mortals, call a father-land their own, They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known. CURFEW. I. SOLEMNLY, mournfully, Dealing its dole, The Curfew Bell Is beginning to toll. Cover the embers, And put out the light; Toil comes with the morning, And rest with the night. Dark grow the windows, And quenched is the fire; Sound fades into silence, All footsteps retire. No voice in the chambers, No sound in the hall! Sleep and oblivion Reign over all II. THE book is completed, And closed, like the day; And the hand that has written it Lays it away. Dim grow its fancies; Forgotten they lie; Like coals in the ashes, They darken and die. Song sinks into silence, The story is told, The windows are darkened, The hearth-stone is cold. Darker and darker The black shadows fall; Sleep and oblivion Reign over all. |