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Swung round the dome of night
With such tremendous might.
A sweetness, like the air of June,
Next paled me with suspense,
A weight of clinging sense-

Some hidden evil would burst on me soon.

My lady's love has pass'd away,
To know that it is so
To me is living woe.

That body lies in cold decay,
Which held the vital soul
When she was my life's soul.
Bitter mockery it was to say-
"Our souls are as the same:

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My words now sting like shame; Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.

It was as if a fiery dart

Pass'd seething through my brain
When I beheld her lain

There whence in life she did not part.
Her beauty by degrees,
Sank, sharpen'd with disease:
The heavy sinking at her heart

Suck'd hollows in her cheek,

And made her eyelids weak,

Though oft they'd open wide with sudden start.

The deathly power in silence drew

My lady's life away.

I watch'd, dumb with dismay,

The shock of thrills that quiver'd through
And tighten'd every limb:

For grief my eyes grew dim;

More near, more near, the moment grew.
O horrible suspense!

O giddy impotence!

I saw her fingers lax, and change their hue.

Her gaze, grown large with fate, was cast
Where my mute agonies

Made more sad her sad eyes:

Her breath caught with short plucks and fast:

Then one hot choking strain.
She never breathed again :
I had the look which was her last :
Even after breath was gone,

Her love one moment shone,

Then slowly closed, and hope for ever pass'd.

Silence seem'd to start in space

When first the bell's harsh toll Rang for my lady's soul. Vitality was hell; her grace

The shadow of a dream: Things then did scarcely seem : Oblivion's stroke fell like a mace: As a tree that's just hewn

I dropp'd, in a dead swoon,

And lay a long time cold upon my face.

Earth had one quarter turn'd before
My miserable fate

Press'd on with its whole weight.
My sense came back; and, shivering o'er,
I felt a pain to bear

The sun's keen cruel glare;

It seem'd not warm as heretofore.
Oh, never more its rays

Will satisfy my gaze.

No more; no more; oh, never any more.

AN END.

Taken from the Germ.

LOVE, strong as death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed

Among the dying flowers:

A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit

In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the spring,
And died before the harvesting
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords, and sad, and low,
Sing we so.

Be our eyes fixed on the grass,
Shadow-veil'd, as the years pass,
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

SONG.

By BARRY CORNWALL.

SING no more! Thy heart is cross'd

By some dire

thing:

Sing no more! They lute has lost

Its one sweet string.

The music of the heart and lute

Are mute-are mute!

Laugh no more! The earth hath taught
A false, fond strain:

Laugh no more! Thy soul hath caught
The grave's first stain.

The pleasures of the world are known,
And flown-and flown!

Weep no more! The fiercest pains

Were love, were pride:

Weep no more! The world's strong chains

Are cast aside.

And all the war of life must cease,

In peace,-in peace!

A SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

By J. F. WALLER.

MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother, sitting,
Is croning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting-
"Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping."-
"'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping."
"Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing.".

""Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying." Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

"What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?".

"Tis the little birds chirping the hollybush under."

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"What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, And singing all wrong that old song of The Coolun'?". There's a form at the casement-the form of her true

love

And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love;
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly.”
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing. The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers, Steals up from the seat-longs to go, and yet lingers; A frighten'd glance turns to her drowsy grandmother; Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other. Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;

Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound;

Noiseless and light to the lattic above her

The maid steps-then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower and slower-and slower the wheel swings;
Lower-and lower-and lower the reel rings;

Ere the reel and the wheel stopp'd their ringing and moving,

Thro' the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.

TO MY WIFE.

WITH A PRESENT OF A RING ON OUR WEDDING-DAY.
From an old number of the Gentleman's Magazine.

THEE, Mary, with this ring I wed,—
So, sixteen years ago I said.
Behold another ring-for what?
To wed thee o'er again-why not?
With that first ring I married youth,
Grace, beauty, innocence, and truth,
Taste long admired, sense long revered,
And all my Mary then appear'd.
If she, by merit since disclosed,
Prove twice the woman I supposed,
I plead that double merit now,
To justify a double vow.

Here, then, to-day (with faith as sure,
With ardour as intense and pure,
As when, amidst the rites divine,
I took thy troth and plighted mine)
To thee, sweet girl, my second ring,
A token and a pledge I bring:
With this I wed till death us part,
Thy riper virtues to my heart:
Those virtues, which, before untried,
The wife has added to the bride:
Those virtues, whose progressive claim,
Endearing wedlock's very name,
My soul enjoys, my song approves,
For conscience' sake, as well as love's.
For why?-they show me hour by hour,
Honour's high thought, affection's power,
Discretion's deed, sound judgment's sentence,
And teach me all things-but repentance.

A GRAVE IN THE WILD WOOD.
By Mrs. H. M. STEPHENS.

Он! bury me not in the sunless tomb,
When Death in his chain has bound me:
Let me not sleep where the shadows loom,
In the stifled air around me!

Where the bones of the scarce-remember'd dead
Keep a ghastly watch round my coffin bed!

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