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And still they rowed amidst the roar
Of waters fast prevailing ;
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore;
His wrath was changed to wailing.

For, sore dismayed, through storm and shade
His child he did discover;

One lovely hand she stretched for aid,

And one was round her lover.

"Come back! come back!" he cried in grief,
"Across this stormy water;

And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter! oh, my daughter!"

'Twas vain; the loud waves lashed the shore, Return or aid preventing;

The waters wild went o'er his child,

And he was left lamenting.

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Thomas Campbell.

TO HIS LOVE.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare.

* 192*

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play.
O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To the haven under the hill;

But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And a sound of a voice that is still.

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, oh sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Alfred Tennyson.

.193.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,

But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail,
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal,
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Byron.

.194.

HYMN.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

It was the winter wild

While the heaven-born child

All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies ;
Nature in awe to him

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize :
It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;

Confounded that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;

She crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphere

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;

And waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battle's sound

Was heard the world around;

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night

Wherein the Prince of light

His reign of peace upon the earth began;
The winds with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kissed

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave.

The stars with deep amaze,

Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new-enlightened world no more should need;

He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn

Or ere the point of dawn

Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

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