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And Winter barricades the realms of The sober trader at a tattered cloak Wakes from his dream, and labors for a joke;

frost;

He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay;

Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day!

The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,

And shows his miseries in distant lands;

Condemned a needy suppliant to wait,

While ladies interpose and slaves de

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gaze,

With brisker air the silken courtiers [ways. And turn the varied taunt a thousand Of all the griefs that harass the distressed,

Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the

generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor,

No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore ?

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BEN JONSON.

TO

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine:

Or leave a kiss but in the cup

And I'll not look for wine.

CELIA,

I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be;

The thirst that from the soul doth But thou thereon didst only breathe

rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.

And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I

swear,

Not of itself but thee!

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WHEN I have fears that I may cease | When I behold, upon the night's

to be

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starred face,

Huge, cloudy symbols of a high ro

mance,

And think that I may never live to

trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of Chance;

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moors:

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Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of passion and of mirth

No, yet still steadfast, still un-Ye have left your souls on earth!

changeable,

Pillowed upon my fair love's ripen

ing breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest; Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever,- or else swoon to death.

ODE ON THE POETS. BARDS of passion and of mirth Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains wonder

ous

And the parle of voices thunderous;

Double-lived in regions new!

Ye have souls in heaven too,

FANCY.

EVER let the fancy roam;
Pleasure never is at home;
At a touch sweet pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged fancy wander
Through the thought still spread be-
yond her;

Open wide the mind's cage-door,-
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet fancy! let her loose!
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the spring
Fades as does its blossoming.
Autumn's red-lipped fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,

Cloys with tasting. What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

[her. send

To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,
Fancy, high-commissioned:
She has vassals to attend her;
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped autumn's wealth;
With a still, mysterious stealth;
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it,-thou shalt hear

Distant harvest-carols clear,—
Rustle of the reaped corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn;
And, in the same moment,- hark!
'Tis the early April lark,-
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath
burst;

Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake, all winter-thin,
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

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Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, [fays; Clustered around by all her starry But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But,

in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruittree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath; [die, Now more than ever seems it rich to To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain,

To thy high requiem become a sod.

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