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That pavement, damp and cold,
No smiling courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands,
Lifting with meagre hands
A dying head.

No mingling voices sound
An infant wail alone;

A sob suppressed — again

That short, deep gasp, and then

The parting groau.

O, change! — O, wondrous change!

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SOUTHEY.

XIX. POSTHUMOUS FAME.

THIS honest soul

Would fain look cheery in my house's gloom;
And, like a gay and sturdy evergreen,

Smiles in the midst of blast and desolation,

Where all around him withers.

Perish this frail and fickle frame,

Well, well, wither!

this clay,

That, in its dross-like compound, doth contain
The mind's pure ore and essence! O, that mind
That mind of man! that godlike spring of action!
That source whence learning, virtue, honor, flow!
Which lifts us to the stars; which carries us
O'er the swollen waters of the angry deep,

As swallows skim the air! Thou, fame's sole fountain, That doth transmit a fair and spotless name,

When the vile trunk is rotten.

Give me this

O, give me but to live in after age

Remembered and unsullied! Heaven and earth!
Let my pure flame of honor shine in story,

When I am cold in death, and the slow fire

That wears my vitals now, will no more move me,
Than 'twould a corse within a monument.

COLMAN.

XX. ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER.

WILL WAG went to see Charley Quirk,

More famed for his books than his learning,

In order to borrow a work

He had sought for in vain over college.

But Charley replied, "My dear friend,
You must know I have sworn and agreed,
My books from my room not to lend, -
But you may sit by my fire and read."

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Now it happened, by chance, on the morrow,
That Quirk, with a cold, quivering air,
Came his neighbor Will's bellows to borrow,
For his own, they were out of repair.

But Willy replied, "My dear friend,

I have sworn and agreed, you must know, That bellows I never will lend,

my

But you may sit at my fire and blow.”

MRS. GILMAN.

XXI. DRIVING HOME THE COWS.

OUT of the clover and blue-eyed grass,
IIe turned them into the river-lane;
One after another he let them pass,
Then fastened the meadow bars again.

Under the willows and over the hill,

He patiently followed their sober pace;
The merry whistle for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.

Only a boy! and his father had said

He never could let his youngest go: Two already were lying dead

Under the feet of the trampling foe.

But after the evening work was done,

And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp,

Over his shoulder he slung his gun,

And stealthily followed the foot-path damp,

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