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THE EXILE TO HIS WIFE.

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THE EXILE TO HIS WIFE.

YOME to me, darling, I'm lonely without thee;

COME

Day-time and night-time I'm dreaming about thee;

Night-time and day-time in dreams I behold thee,

Unwelcome the waking that ceases to fold thee;
Come to me, darling, my sorrows to lighten;
Come in thy beauty, to bless and to brighten;
Come in thy womanhood, meekly and lowly;
Come in thy loveliness, queenly and holy.

Swallows shall flit round the desolate ruin,
Telling of Spring and its joyous renewing;
And thoughts of my love and its manifest treasure
Are circling my heart with a promise of pleasure;
Oh! Spring of my heart, oh! May of my bosom;
Shine out on my soul till it burgeon and blossom.
The waste of my life has a rose-root within it,
And thy fondness alone to the sunshine can win it.

Figure which moves like a song through the even,
Features lit up with a reflex of heaven,

Eyes like the skies of poor Erin, our mother,
Where sunshine and shadow are chasing each other.
Smiles coming seldom, but child-like and simple;
And opening their eyes from the heart of a dimple;
Oh! thanks to the Saviour that even the seeming
Is left to the exile, to brighten his dreaming.

You have been glad when you knew I was gladdened;
Dear, are you sad to hear I am saddened?
Our hearts ever answer in tune and in time, love;
As octave to octave, and rhyme unto rhyme, love;
I cannot smile but your cheeks will be glowing;
You cannot weep but my tears will be flowing;
You will not linger when I shall have died, love;
And I could not live without you at my side, love.
Come to me, darling, ere I die of my sorrow;
Rise on my gloom like the sun of to-morrow;

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SCROOGE AND MARLEY.

Come swift and strong as the words which I speak, love,
With a song on your lip, and a smile on your cheek, love;
Come, for my heart in your absence is dreary;

Haste, for my spirit is sickened and weary;

Come to the arms which alone shall caress thee;
Come to the heart that is throbbing to press thee.

THE BUGLE SONG.-TENNYSON.

HE splendor falls on castle walls,

THE

And snowy summits old and hoary;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Oh, hark! oh, hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going;
Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scaur,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing:

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Oh, love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

SCROOGE AND MARLEY.-CHARLES DICKENS.

MAR

ARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change. for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

SCROOGE AND MARLEY.

423

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.

Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterward, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

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EVENING AT THE FARM.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind-men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

EVENING AT THE FARM.-TROWBRIDGE.

VER the hill the farm-boy goes,
His shadow lengthens along the land,

A giant staff in a giant hand;

In the poplar-tree, above the spring,

The katy-did begins to sing;

The early dews are falling;

Into the stone-heap darts the mink; -
The swallows skim the river's brink;
And home to the woodland fly the crows,
When over the hill the farm-boy goes,
Cheerily calling,

"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"

Farther, farther, over the hill,

Faintly calling, calling still,

"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!"

Now to her task the milkmaid goes.

The cattle come crowding through the gate,
Lowing, pushing, little and great;
About the trough, by the farm-yard pump,
The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump,

While the pleasant dews are falling;

THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY.

The new milch heifer is quick and shy,
But the old cow waits with tranquil eye,

And the white stream into the bright pail flows,
When to her task the milkmaid goes,
Soothingly calling,

"So, boss! so, boss! so! so! so!"
The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool,
And sits and milks in the twilight cool,
Saying, "So! so, boss! so! so!"

Το supper at last the farmer goes.
The apples are pared, the paper read,
The stories are told, then all to bed.
Without, the crickets' ceaseless song
Makes shrill the silence all night long;
The heavy dews are falling;-

The housewife's hand has turned the lock;
Drowsily ticks the kitchen clock;
The household sinks to deep repose,
But still in sleep the farm-boy goes,
Singing, calling,

"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
And oft the milkmaid, in her dreams,
Drums in the pail with the flashing streams,
Murmuring, "So, boss! so!"

THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY.-JEAN INGELOW.

THE old mayor climbed the belfry tower,

The ringers rang by two, by three;

"Pull, if ye never pulled before;

Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he. "Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!

Ply all your changes, all your swells,

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