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On that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high;
Sorrows--that are sorrows still--
Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill

In the griefs of Long-ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,
Ghastly tenements of tears,
Wear the look of happy shrines

Through the golden mist of years;
Death, to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow;
Oh! we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-ago!

Though the doom of swift decay

Shocks the soul where life is strong;

Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and overlong:-
Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its Heaven,

And the past its Long-ago.

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.

Sunken Treasures.

HEN the uneasy waves of life subside,

WHE

And the smoothed ocean sleeps in glassy rest,

I see, submerged beyond or storm or tide,

The treasures gathered in its greedy breast,

SUNKEN TREASURES.

There still they shine through the translucent Past,
Far down on that forever quiet floor;

No fierce upheaval of the deep shall cast

Them back-no wave shall wash them to the shore.

I see them gleaming, beautiful as when

Erewhile they floated, convoys of my fate; The barks of lovely women, noble men,

211

Full-sailed with hope, and stored with Love's own freight.

The sunken ventures of my heart as well
Look up to me, as perfect as at dawn;
My golden palace heaves beneath the swell
To meet my touch, and is again withdrawn.

There sleep the early triumphs, cheaply won,
That led Ambition to his utmost verge;
And still his visions, like a drowning sun,
Send up receding splendors through the surge.

There wait the recognitions, the quick ties,
Whence the heart knows its kin, wherever cast;
And there the partings, when the wistful eyes
Caress each other as they look their last.

There lie the summer eves, delicious eves,

The soft green valleys drenched with light divine,
The lisping murmurs of the chestnut leaves,
The hand that lay, the eyes that looked in mine.

There lives the hour of fear and rapture yet,
The perilled climax of the passionate years;
There still the rains of wan December wet
A naked mound-I cannot see for tears!

There are they all; they do not fade or waste,
Lapped in the arms of the embalming brine;
More fair than when their beings mine embraced,—
Of nobler aspect, beauty more divine.

I see them all, but stretch my hands in vain ;
No deep-sea plummet reaches where they rest;
No cunning diver shall descend the main,
And bring a single jewel from its breast.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

Oft, in the Stilly Night.

FT, in the stilly night,

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Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain hath bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so linked together,

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather;

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

THOMAS Moore.

HOW MANY NOW ARE DEAD TO ME. 213

How Many now are Dead to Me.

HOW many now are dead to me,

That live to others yet!

How many are alive to me,

Who crumble in their graves, nor see

That sickening, sinking look which we,
Till dead, can ne'er forget!

Beyond the blue seas far away,
Most wretchedly alone,

One died in prison, far away,

Where stone on stone shut out the day,
And never hope nor comfort's ray
In his lone dungeon shone.

Dead to the world, alive to me,

Though months and years have passed,
In some lone hour his sigh to me
Comes like the hum of some wild bee,
And then his form and face I see,

As when I saw him last.

And one with a bright lip, and cheek,
And eye, is dead to me:

How pale the bloom of his smooth cheek!
His heart was cold, for it did not break;
His lip was dead, for it did not speak,
And his eye, for it did not see.

Then for the living be the tomb,
And for the dead the smile;
Engrave oblivion on the tomb

Of pulseless life, and senseless bloom :-
Dim is such glare, but bright the gloom

Around the funeral pile.

JOHN G. C. BRAINARD.

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Break, Break, Break."

BREAK, break, break

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on,

To the haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break

At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Too Late.

"Ah! si la jeunesse savait-si la vieillesse pouvait !"

HERE sat an old man on a rock,

ΤΗ

And unceasing bewailed him of Fate-
That concern where we all must take stock

Though our vote has no hearing or weight;
And the old man sang him an old, old song—
Never sang voice so clear and strong

That it could drown the old man's long,

For he sang the song

"too late! too late!"

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