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So serious should my youth appear among

The thoughtless throng;

So would I seem amid the young and gay

More grave than they, That in my age as cheerful I might be As the green winter of the holly-tree.

Poor outcast, sleep in peace! the wintry storm

Blows bleak no more on thy unsheltered form;

Thy woes are past; thou restest in the tomb;

I pause, and ponder on the days to

come.

THE PAUPER'S FUNERAL. WHAT! and not one to heave the pious sigh?

Not one whose sorrow-swollen and aching eye

For social scenes, for life's endearments fled,

Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead!

Poor wretched outcast! I will weep for thee,

And sorrow for forlorn humanity. Yes, I will weep; but not that thou art come

To the stern sabbath of the silent tomb:

For squalid want, and the black scorpion care,

Heart-withering fiends! shall never enter there.

I sorrow for the ills thy life hath known,

As through the world's long pilgrim

age, alone,

Haunted by poverty, and woebegone, Unloved, unfriended, thou didst jour

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And hear all nature's melodies. The primrose bank shall there dispense

Faint fragrance to the awakened

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I to the woodlands bend my way
And meet Religion there.
She needs not haunt the high-arched

dome to pray

Now tell us what 'twas all about,
Young Peterkin he cries,
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;

Where storied windows dim the Now tell us all about the war,

doubtful day.

With Liberty she loves to rove, Wide o'er the heathy hill or cowslipt dale;

Or seek the shelter of the embowering grove,

Or with the streamlet wind along the vale.

Sweet are these scenes to her; and when the night

Pours in the north her silver streams

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THE CATARACT OF Lodore.

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore!"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon, at the word;
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,

To second and third
The request of their brother;
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was laureate

To them and the king.

From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;

Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps

In its own little lake,
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,

And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,

In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry,

Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till, in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.

The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among;
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,

Around and around With endless rebound: Smiting and fighting A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Collecting, projecting, Receding and speeding, And shocking and rocking, And darting and parting, And threading and spreading, And whizzing and hissing, And dripping and skipping, And hitting and splitting, And shining and twining, And rattling and battling, And shaking and quaking, And pouring and roaring, And waving and raving, And tossing and crossing, And flowing and going, And running and stunning, And foaming and roaming, And dinning and spinning. And dropping and hopping, And working and jerking, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And moaning and groaning; And glittering and frittering, And gathering and feathering, And whitening and brightening, And quivering and shivering, And hurrying and skurrying, And thundering and floundering; Dividing and gliding and sliding, And falling and brawling and sprawling,

And driving and riving and striving,

And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,

And sounding and bounding and rounding,

And bubbling and troubling and doubling,

And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,

And clattering and battering and shattering;

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,

Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,

And gleaming and streaming and

steaming and beaming, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,

And flapping and rapping and clapping, and slapping, And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,

And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;

And so never ending, but always descending,

Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending All at once, and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,

And this way, the water comes down at Lodore.

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I fear no care for gold,
Well-doing is my wealth;
My mind to me an empire is,
While grace affordeth health.

I clip high-climbing thoughts,
The wings of swelling pride;
Their fall is worst that from the height
Of greatest honor slide.

Since sails of largest size

The storm doth soonest tear, I bear so low and small a sail As freeth me from fear.

I wrestle not with rage

While fury's flame doth burn;

It is in vain to stop the stream Until the tide doth turn.

But when the flame is out,

And ebbing wrath doth end, I turn a late enragèd foe Into a quiet friend.

And, taught with often proof,
A tempered calm I find
To be most solace to itself,
Best cure for angry mind.

Spare diet is my fare,

My clothes more fit than fine; I know I feed and clothe a foe, That pampered would repine.

I envy not their hap

Whom favor doth advance;
I take no pleasure in their pain
That have less happy chance.

To rise by others' fall

I deem a losing gain;
All states with others' ruin built
To ruin run amain.

No change of Fortune's calm

Can cast my comforts down:
When Fortune smiles, I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.

And when, in froward mood,
She proved an angry foe,
Small gain, I found, to let her come-
Less loss to let her go.

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