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TO BLOSSOMS

By Robert Herrick

AIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here a
while

To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

[graphic]

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?

'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

T

THE HOUSEKEEPER

By Charles Lamb

HE frugal snail, with forecast of repose,
Carries his house with him where'er he goes;
Peeps out, -
and if there comes a shower

of rain,

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Retreats to his small domicile again.

Touch but a tip of him, a horn, - 'tis well, -
He curls up in his sanctuary shell.

He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.
Himself he boards and lodges; both invites
And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o' nights.

He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure
Chattels; himself is his own furniture,
And his sole riches. Whereso'er he roam,
Knock when you will,

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- he's sure to be at home.

THE CLOUD

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the

dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,

It struggles and howls at fits;

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Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack

When the morning-star shines dead,

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath

Its ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbèd maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march.
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

And the nursling of the sky:

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex

gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

THE RECOLLECTION

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

[graphic]

OW the last day of many days, All beautiful and bright as thou,

The loveliest and the last, is dead,

Rise, Memory, and write its
praise!

Up, do thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,

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For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

We wandered to the pine forest

That skirts the Ocean's foam;

The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of Heaven lay;

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