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"I

pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech:
That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me;
To him my tale I teach.

"What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding guests are there;

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are:
And, hark! the little vesper-bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

"O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:

So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemèd there to be.

"Oh! sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company;

"To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray ;

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay.

"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest,
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn :

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

HYMN

BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNIX.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc !

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge! But, when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity.

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, inwrapt, transfused
Into the mighty vision passing, there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven.

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest; not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy. Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all, join my hymn!

Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!
Oh! struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink;
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald, wake, oh! wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered, and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?

And who commanded (and the silence came),

66

'Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest"?

Ye icefalls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain;
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,

And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge, -
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
"God!" let the torrents like a shout of nations
Answer; and let the ice-plains echo, “God! ”
"God!" sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice;
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds;
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, “God!”

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ;
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest;
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm;
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds;
Ye signs and wonders of the element,
Utter forth" God!" and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,-
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou
That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me, rise, oh! ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth,
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills;
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven:
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

THOMAS HOOD.

1798-1845.

This distinguished wit and humorist had the remarkable power of giving a pun the dignity of wit. "Eugene Aram's Dream," "The Song of the Shirt," and "The Bridge of Sighs," prove his power as a poet, and give him a permanent place in our literature.

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

WITH fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.

Stitch, stitch, stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, She sang the "Song of the Shirt:

"Work, work, work,

While the cock is crowing aloof; And work, work, work,

Till the stars shine through the roof! It's, oh! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If THIS is Christian work!

"Work, work, work,

Till the brain begins to swim;
Work, work, work,

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam and gusset and band,
Band and gusset and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in my dream!

"O men with sisters dear!

O men with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out, But human creatures' lives! Stitch, stitch, stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt; Sewing at once, with a double thread, A SHROUD as well as a shirt!

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Band and gusset and seam,

Seam and gusset and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, As well as the weary hand.

"Work, work, work,

In the dull December light ;

And work, work, work,

When the weather is warm and bright;

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs,
And twit me with the spring.

"Oh but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet,
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet!
For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal!

"Oh but for one short hour,

A respite, however brief!
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart:
But in their briny bed

My tears must stop; for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread;
Stitch, stitch, stitch,

In poverty, hunger, and dirt;

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
Would that its tone could reach the rich! -

She sang this "Song of the Shirt."

THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

ONE more unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care,
Fashioned so slenderly,

Young, and so fair Ĭ

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