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And lighten'd up
his faded eye
With all a poet's ecstasy!

In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along:
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot
Cold diffidence, and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank in faithless mem'ry void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied.

Scolt.

TIT FOR TAT.

A LAW there is of ancient fame,
By Nature's self in every land implanted;
Lex Talionis is its Latin name;

But if an English term be wanted,

Give your next neighbor but a pat,

He'll give you back as good, and tell you-tit for tat.

This tit for tat, it seems, not men alone,
But Elephants for legal justice own;
In proof of this a story I shall tell ye,
Imported from the famous town of Delhi.

A mighty Elephant that swell'd the state
Of Aurengzebe the Great,

One day was taken by his driver
To drink and cool him in the river.
The driver on his neck was seated,
And, as he rode along,

By some acquaintance in the throng,
With a ripe cocoa-nut was treated.

A cocoa-nut's a pretty fruit enough,
But guarded by a shell, both hard and tough.
The fellow tried, and tried, and tried,
Working and sweating,

Fuming and fretting,

To find out its inside,

And pick the kernel for his eating.

At length, quite out of patience grown,
"Who'll reach me up," he cries,
a stone

To break this plaguy shell?

But stay, I've here a solid bone,

May do, perhaps, as well." So half in earnest, half in jest,

He bang'd it on the forehead of his beast.

An Elephant, they say, has human feeling,
And full as well as we, he knows

The diff'rence between words and blows,
Between horse-play and civil dealing.
Use him but well, he'll do his best,
And serve you faithfully and truly;

But insults unprovoked he can't digest,
He studies o'er them, and repays them duly.

"To make my head an anvil," thought the creature, "Was never, certainly, the will of nature; So, master, mine, you may repent." Then, shaking his broad ears, away he went. The driver took him to the water,

And thought no more about the matter
But Elephant within his mem'ry hid it;
He felt the wrong—the other only did it.

A week or two elapsed: one market day
Again the beast and driver took their way;
Through rows of shops and booths they past,
With eatables and trinkets stored,

Till to a gard'ner's stall they came at last,
Where cocoa-nuts lay piled upon the board.

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Ah!" thought the Elephant, "tis now my turn

To show this method of nut-breaking;

My friend above will like to learn, Though at the cost of a head-aching."

Then in his curling trunk he took a heap,

And waved it o'er his neck with sudden sweep,
And on the hapless driver's sconce

He laid a blow so hard and full,

That crack'd the nuts at once,

But with them crack'd his skull.

Young folks, whene'er you feel inclined
To rompish sports and freedoms rough,
Bear tit for tat in mind,

Nor give an Elephant a cuff
To be repaid in kind.

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They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garland withers on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon death's purple altar now

See where the victor victim bleeds;
All heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

Herbert.

THE RAVEN.

ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I ponder'd, weak and

weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door;
""Tis some visitor," I muttered, tapping at my chamber

door

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Only this, and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the. floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow

From my
books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore-
For the rare and radiant_maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrill'd me-fill'd me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
""Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door:
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said Ï, or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"-here I open'd wide the

door ;

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was the whisper'd word, "Lenore!"

This I whisper'd, and an echo murmur'd back the word, "Lenore!".

Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;

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Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery exploreLet my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore ;

"Tis the wind, and nothing more." Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepp'd a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopp'd or stay'd

he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber door

Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber doorPerch'd and sat, and nothing more.

STANDARD

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure

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no craven,

Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Never more."

Much I marvell'd this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning-little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was bless'd with seeing bird above his chamber door-
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as Never more.

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But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing farther then he utter'd; not a feather then he flutter'd

Till I scarcely more than mutter'd, "Other friends have flown before

On the morrow he will leave us, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Never more."

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Startled by the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster Follow'd fast and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden boreTill the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore, OfNever-never more.'

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But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheel'd a cushion'd seat in front of bird and bust and door

Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore-
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of

yore

Meant in croaking "Never more."

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burn'd into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, never more.

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