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But mine each change of social life;
A guardian of the public weal,
For fires I sound my warning peal;
I call the wealthy to my door
To drop their bounty on the poor;
Proclaim, with deep and awful pause,
The vengeance due for broken laws;
Or, sadly, slowly, summon forth
Affection's tears for buried worth.
Nor mine the sounds of woe alone,
Each public triumph claims my tone;
Hard-task'd mechanics know my voice,
Signal of freedom, and rejoice;
And when the holy knot is tied,

I greet the bridegroom and the bride:
Mine are law, reason, peace, and faith;
Thine, desperate life and timeless death.

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Herald of earthly pomp and pride,
Let this our precedence decide;
The servant of no human lord,
I speak a mightier monarch's word,
And sound within my cloister'd portal
Of mortal death, of life immortal;
Of woes that mock at every cure,
Of weal that ever shall endure;
Of wars against the powers of hell,
Of God's own peace ineffable;
Of man renew'd by heavenly birth,
Glad tidings, joy, good will on earth.-

Then sunk the trumpet's boastful clang,

And undisturb'd the Death-Bell rang

THE VOICE OF THE OAK.

GENIUS! if such may chance to dwell
Within the excavated bound
That rudely shapes this oaken cell,
And closes in its knotty round;
Genius! with acorn chaplet crown'd,
Thy hoar antiquity might well,
If fraught it were with mortal sound,
Of elder days a legend tell. .

For many a course of sun and shade,
Tempest and calm, thy growth matured;

And many a year its circle made,

The while thy summer prime endured: To flood and flame of heaven inured,

Slow centuries hast thou o'erstaid,

By stern, majestic might secured

From storms that wreck, or blights that fade.
And for long date ensured.

Thou, like a hermit sad and sage,

In silence lone thy dwelling hast;

Thine aspect is a living page,

Where times o'erflown their annals cast;

For through the watches of the past,

Thou hast beheld, as age on age
Dawn'd-hast beheld them setting fast,
And Time, on his long pilgrimage,
Still hurrying to the last.

And thou, that saw'st them wear away,
Dost fail. Even as the seasons glide,
Thy grandeur creeps to sure decay,
Amid the devastation wide:

For Time thy giant strength has tried,
And, sparely decked, thy branches gray
Hang, like old banners, at thy side,
To mark his conquering sway.

Ere long, the vernal year, in vain,

Shall seek this trembling shade of thine;

Thee to infoliate, ne'er again

Shall Spring her freshest garland twine. The presage of thy slow decline

O'er all thy silver'd bark is plain

Inscribed, in many a fatal sign,
Portentous of thy ruined reign.

But, sure, a whisper faintly broke,
Startling the twilight air!
Was it the Spirit of the Oak,
Or Fancy haunting there,

With seeming voice!-Again it spoke!
Nor mortal hearing dare

To still the echoes it awoke,

Or bid its tongue forbear.

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it gives thee, mild queen of the night, ret intelligent grace?

uld I gaze with such tender delight Fair but insensible face?

ntle enchantment possesses thy beam,
the warm sunshine of day?

n is cold as the glittering stream,
dances thy tremulous ray.

you the sad heart of its sorrow beguile,
lef's fond indulgence suspend?

ere is the mourner but welcomes thy smile,

Joves thee almost as a friend?

ar that looks bright on thy beam as it flows,

ov'd thou dost ever behold;

orrow that loves in thy light to repose, thee it has never been told;

yet thou dost sooth me, and ever I find, hile watching thy gentle retreat, oonlight composure steal over the mind, oetical, pensive, and sweet.

"Child of the dust! to being sprung

Long since these boughs with age were bent, Thy useless lay is idly sung,

Thy breath in vain conjecture spent.

"What though with ancient pomp I wear
The spoil of years, for ever flown;
What though in dryad lore I bear
The memory of things unknown;

"Thee little it imports to hear,

How o'er the waining orb of time, Fleet ages dawn and disappear,

Revolving in their course sublime.

"The voice of years would tire to tell What desolating waste has been; ' What generations rose and fell

Since erst these aged limbs were green.

"For swift as o'er the changing skies Sunshine and winter whirlwinds sweep, The mortal race to being rise,

And rest them in their slumber deep:

"Some in the early bud are reft,

And some in blossom immature; Of those to summer ripeness left,

How few till Nature's fall endure!

"For countless are the forms of fate That lurk in silent ambushment, The term so brief to antedate,

To quench the flame so quickly spent.

"O seek not, in the dust of years,

The fragments strew'd by man's decay; Enough in every hour appears,

To tell that all things wear away.

"Even while the curious search is gone
In quest of hosts and legions fled,
Thy own brief term is hasting on
To join the phalanx of the dead.

"For it is not the rushing flight
Of seasons soaring to the sun;
And it is not the wasted might

Of ages when their march is done;

"It is the sand that hourly keeps
Its silent ebb from day to day,
Which plunders, while it slowly creeps,
The golden hoard of life away.

"The winds in destined courses fly,
Though secret be their way and dark;

The sunbeam ceases not on high,
Although no shade the dial mark.

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