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For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.

And the people-ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human—
They are Ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pean of the bells—
Of the bells;

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells,

To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-

To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells,

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

EXCELSIOR.

(H. W. LONGFEllow.)

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye, beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath;
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright:
Above, the spectral glaciers shone:
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!

"Try not to pass !" the old man said; "Dark lowers the tempest overhead; The roaring torrent is deep and wide!"— And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye;
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!"

This was the peasant's last good-night;— A voice replied, far up the height,

Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of St. Bernard
Uttered the oft repeated prayer,

A voice cried, through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half buried in the snow, was found,
Still grasping, in his hand of ice,
The banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,—
Excelsior!

THE FAMINE.

(H. W. LONGFELLOW.)

O the long and dreary Winter!
O the cold and cruel Winter!
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker,
Froze the ice on lake and river;
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper,
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
Hardly from his buried wigwam
Could the hunter force a passage;
With his mittens and his snow-shoes

Vainly walk'd he through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none;
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,

In the snow beheld no footprints,
In the ghastly, gleaming forest

Fell, and could not rise from weakness,
Perish'd there from cold and hunger.

O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!

All the earth was sick and famish'd;
Hungry was the air around them,
Hungry was the sky above them,
And the hungry stars in heaven

Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!

Into Hiawatha's wigwam

Came two other guests, as silent
As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,
Waited not to be invited,

Did not parley at the doorway,
Sat there without word of welcome
In the seat of Laughing Water;
Looked with haggard eyes and hollow
At the face of Laughing Water.
And the foremost said: "Behold me!
I am Famine, Bukadawin !"

And the other said: "Behold me!
I am Fever, Alkosewin!"
And the lovely Minnehaha
Shudder'd as they look'd upon her,
Shudder'd at the words they utter'd,
Lay down on her bed in silence,
Hid her face, but made no answer;
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon her,
At the fearful words they utter'd.

Forth into the empty forest
Rushed the madden'd Hiawatha;
In his heart was deadly sorrow,
In his face a stony firmness,
On his brow the sweat of anguish
Started, but it froze and fell not.
Wrapp'd in furs and arm'd for hunting,

With his mighty bow of ash-tree,
With his quiver full of arrows,
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Into the vast and vacant forest
On his snow-shoes strode he forward.
"Gitche Manito, the Mighty!"
Cried he with his face uplifted
In that bitter hour of anguish,
"Give your children food, O father!
Give us food, or we mnst perish!
Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha!"
Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant
Rang that cry of desolation,
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of his crying,
Than the echo of the woodlands,
"MINNEHAHA! MINNEHAHA!"

All day long roved Hiawatha
In that melancholy forest,

Through the shadow of whose thickets,
In the pleasant days of Summer,
Of that ne'er forgotten Summer,

He had brought his young wife homeward
From the land of the Dakotahs;
When the birds sang in the thickets,
And the streamlets laugh'd and glisten'd,
And the air was full of fragrance,
And the lovely Laughing Water
Said with voice that did not tremble,

"I will follow you, my husband !”

In the wigwam with Nokomis,

With those gloomy guests that watch'd her, With the Famine and the Fever,

She was lying, the Beloved,

She the dying Minnehaha.

"Hark!" she said, "I hear a rushing,

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