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Dark, calm, large-fronted, lightning-eyed, Earth has no double from its mould!

Ere from the fields by valor won

The battle-smoke had rolled away, And bared the blood-red setting sun, His eyes were opened on the day.

His land was but a shelving strip

Black with the strife that made it free; He lived to see its banners dip

Their fringes in the Western sea.

The boundless prairies learned his name, His words the mountain echoes knew. The Northern breezes swept his fame From icy lake to warm bayou.

In toil he lived; in peace he died;

When life's full cycle was complete Put off his robes of power and pride,

And laid them at his Master's feet.

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Not while the rocking steeples reel
With midnight tocsins ringing,
Not while the crashing war-notes peal,
God sets his poets singing;
The bird is silent in the night,

Or shrieks a cry of warning
While fluttering round the beacon-light,
But hear him greet the morning!

The lark of Scotia's morning sky!

Whose voice may sing his praises? With Heaven's own sunlight in his eye, He walked among the daisies, Till through the cloud of fortune's wrong He soared to fields of glory; But left his land her sweetest song And earth her saddest story.

'Tis not the forts the builder piles That chain the earth together;

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The wedded crowns, the sister isles,
Would laugh at such a tether;
The kindling thought, the throbbing words.
That set the pulses beating,

Are stronger than the myriad swords
Of mighty armies meeting.

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No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white Is braided out of seven-hued light,

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1 Having read our company so much of the Professor's talk about age and other subjects connected with physical life, I took the next Sunday morning to repeat to them the following poem of his, which I have had by me for some time. He calls it-I suppose for his professional friends The Anatomist's Hymn,' but I shall name it The Living Temple.' (HOLMES, introducing the poem, in the Autocrat.)

Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine

ear

With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds;
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads !

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mould it into heavenly forms!

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1858.

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE

OR, THE WONDERFUL ONE-HOSS SHAY'

A LOGICAL STORY

HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss

shay,

That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits, -
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

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But the Deacon swore (as deacons do, With an 'I dew vum,' or an 'I tell yeou') He would build one shay to beat the taown 'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; 30 It should be so built that it could n' break daown:

'Fur,' said the Deacon, ''t's mighty plain Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;

'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest

T' make that place uz strong uz the rest.'

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Eighteen hundred increased by ten; -
'Hahnsum kerridge' they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;·
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here

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For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,

And the floor was just as strong as the sills,

And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, And the back crossbar as strong as the

fore,

And spring and axle and hub encore. And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt In another hour it will be worn out!

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First of November, 'Fifty-five! This morning the parson takes a drive. Now, small boys, get out of the way! Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 'Huddup!' said the parson. Off went they.

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The parson was working his Sunday's text,

Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the-Moses- was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,-
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house
clock,-

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! 110
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

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End of the wonderful one-hoss shay Logic is logic. That's all I say.

CONTENTMENT

'Man wants but little here below.'

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone
(A very plain brown stone will do)
That I may call my own;-
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;-
If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I always thought cold victual nice; My choice would be vanilla-ice.

;

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1858.

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I care not much for gold or land; -
Give me a mortgage here and there,
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share,

I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.

Honors are silly toys, I know,

And titles are but empty names;
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo, -

But only near St. James;
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.

Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin

To care for such unfruitful things;

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