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Hanging on their velvet heads
Like a rope of crystal beads;
See the heavy clouds low-falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead Night from underground,
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapours, fly apace
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures; where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore from such danger, lock
Every one his loved flock,

And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come as a scout
From the mountain, and, e'er day,
Bear a lamb or kid away,

Or the crafty thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourselves from these,
Be not too secure in ease;
Let one eye his watches keep,
While the other eye doth sleep;
So shall you good shepherds prove,
And for ever hold the love

Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers
And soft silence fall in numbers
On your eyelids: so farewell;

Thus I end my evening's knell.

JOHN FLETCHER.

THE FUGITIVES.

TH

I.

HE waters are flashing, The white hail is dashing, The lightnings are glancing, The hoar spray is dancing,— Away!

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And she cried: "Ply the oar;

Put off gaily from shore!"

As she spoke, bolts of death

Mix'd with hail, speck'd their path O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower, and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke,
Though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flash'd fast

From the lee.

III.

"And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou? And see'st thou, and hear'st thou ? And drive we not free

O'er the terrible sea,

I and thou?'

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One boat-cloak did cover
The loved and the lover—
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low ;—

While around, the lash'd Ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shatter'd, and shifted,
To and fro.

IV.

In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,

Like a bloodhound well beaten

The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame;

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,

Stands the grey tyrant father,-
To his voice the mad weather
Seems tame;

And with curses as wild
As e'er cling to child,
He devotes to the blast

The best, loveliest, and last

Of his name.

SHELLEY.

[TO A DEPARTED FRIEND.]

D

OST thou look back on what hath been,
As some divinely gifted man,

Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;

Who makes by force his merit known
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;

And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire;

Yet feels as in a pensive dream,
When all his active powers are still,
A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream,

The limit of his narrow fate,

While yet beside its vocal springs He play'd at counsellors and kings, With one that was his earliest mate;

Who ploughs with pain his native lea
And reaps the labour of his hands,
Or in the furrow musing stands;
Does my old friend remember me?

In Memoriam.

66

SONG.

[FROM AS YOU LIKE IT."]

U

NDER the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,

And tune his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun,

And loves to live i' the sun;

Seeking the food he eats,

And pleased with what he gets,

Come hither, come hither, come hither :

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

SHAKESPEARE.

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