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WHEN I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house :
I passed the door, and saw my friends

Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine,

They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat :

Said one: "To-morrow we shall be Plod plod along the featureless sands And coasting miles and miles of sea."

AT HOME.

Said one: "Before the turn of tide
We will achieve the eyrie-seat."
Said one: "To-morrow shall be like
To-day, but much more sweet."

"To-morrow," said they, strong with hope, And dwelt upon the pleasant way: "To-morrow," cried they one and all, While no one spoke of yesterday. Their life stood full at blessed noon; I, only I, had passed away. "To-morrow and to-day," they cried ; I was of yesterday.

I shivered comfortless, but cast
No chill across the table-cloth;
I all-forgotten shivered, sad

To stay and yet to part how loth:
I passed from the familiar room,
I who from love had passed away,
Like the remembrance of a guest
That tarrieth but a day.

133

Christina Rossetti.

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THE grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Robert Browning.

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REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay!
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned :
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel or to pray.
Yet if you should forget me for awhile
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Christina Rossetti.

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Nor wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.
News from the humming city comes to it
In sound of funeral or of marriage bells;
And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear
The windy clanging of the minster clock;
Although between it and the garden lies

A league of grass, washed by a slow broad stream,
That, stirred with languid pulses of the oar,
Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,
Barge-laden to three arches of a bridge
Crowned with the minster-towers.

The fields between

Are dewy fresh, browsed by deep-udder'd kine,
And all about the large lime feathers low,

The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.

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