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76.-THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET. WHERE art thou, my beloved son,

Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
Oh, find me, prosperous or undone !
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same,
That I may rest: and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?
Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child;
To have despaired, have hoped, believed,
And been for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss ;
Was ever darkness like to this?

He was among the prime in worth,
An object beauteous to behold;
Well-born, well-bred: I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace,
As hath been said, they were not base;
And never blush was on my face.
Ah! little doth the young one dream,
When full of play and childish cares,
What power is in his wildest scream,

Heard by his mother unawares!
He knows it not, he cannot guess;
Years to a mother bring distress;
But do not make her love the less.

Neglect me! no, I suffered long

From that ill thought; and, being blind, Said, "Pride shall help me in my wrong; "Kind mother have I been, as kind

"As ever breathed ;" and that is true;
I've wet my path with tears like dew,
Weeping for him when no one knew.
My son, if thou be humbled, poor,
Hopeless of honour and of gain,
Oh, do not dread thy mother's door;
Think not of me with grief and pain;
I now can see with better eyes;
And worldly grandeur I despise,
And fortune with her gifts and lies.
Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings,
And blasts of heaven will aid their flight;
They mount--how short a voyage brings
The wanderers back to their delight!
Chains tie me down by land and sea;
And wishes, vain as mine may be,
All that is left to comfort thee.
Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan,
Maimed, mangled by inhuman men ;
Or thou upon a desert thrown

Inheritest the lion's den;

Or hast been summoned to the deep
Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep
An incommunicable sleep.

I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me;-'tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse

Between the living and the dead;
For, surely, then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night,
With love and longings infinite.
My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass:

The very shadows of the clouds

Have power to shake me as they pass;
I question things, and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind.
Beyond participation lie

My troubles, and beyond relief:
If any chance to heave a sigh,

They pity me, and not my grief. Then come to me, my son, or send Some tidings that my woes may end: I have no other earthly friend!

Wordsworth.

77. GOD'S ACRE.

I LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls
The burial-ground GoD's Acre !

It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.
GOD's Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown
The seed, that they had garnered in their hearts,
Their bread of life; alas! no more their own.
Into its furrows shall we all be cast,

In the sure faith that we shall rise again,
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain ;
Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume

With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth.

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
And spread the furrows for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,

This is the place, where human harvests grow !

Longfellow.

78. SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS.

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be:

But she is in her grave, and, oh!

The difference to me!

I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England, did I know till then

What love I bore to thee.

"Tis past, that melancholy dream!

Nor will I quit thy shore
Ι

A second time: for still I seem

To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel

Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine, too, is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

Wordsworth.

79. THE SAILOR.

THE sailor sighs as sinks his native shore,
As all its lessening turrets bluely fade;
He climbs the mast to feast his eyes once more,
And busy fancy fondly lends her aid.

Ah! now, each dear domestic scene he knew,
Recalled and cherished in a foreign clime,
Charms with the magic of a moonlight view,

Its colours mellowed, not impaired, by time.
True as the needle, homeward points his heart,
Through all the horrors of the stormy main;
This, the last wish that would with life depart,
To meet the smile of her he loves again.

When morn first faintly draws her silver line,
Or eve's grey cloud descends to drink the wave;
When sea and sky in midnight-darkness join,
Still, still he sees the parting look she gave.

Her gentle spirit, lightly hovering o'er,

Attends his little bark from pole to pole; And, when the beating billows round him roar, Whispers sweet hope to soothe his troubled soul. Carved is her name in many a spicy grove, In many a plantain-forest, waving wide; Where dusky youths in painted plumage rove, And giant palms o'er-arch the golden tide.

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