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Never mind how the pedagogue proses,
    You want not antiquity's stamp;
A lip, that such fragrance discloses,
    Oh! never should smell of the lamp.

Old Cloe, whose withering kiss
    Hath long set the Loves at defiance,
Now, done with the science of bliss,
    May take to the blisses of science.

But for you to be buried in books--
    Ah, Fanny, they're pitiful sages,
Who could not in one of your looks
    Read more than in millions of pages.

Astronomy finds in those eyes
    Better light than she studies above;
And Music would borrow your sighs
    As the melody fittest for Love.

Your Arithmetic only can trip
    If to count your own charms you endeavor;
And Eloquence glows on your lip
    When you swear...

Pause, Traveller! whosoe'er thou be
Whom chance may lead to this retreat,
Where silence yields reluctantly
Even to the fleecy straggler's bleat;

Give voice to what my hand shall trace,
And fear not lest an idle sound
Of words unsuited to the place
Disturb its solitude profound.

I saw this Rock, while vernal air
Blew softly o'er the russet heath,
Uphold a Monument as fair
As church or abbey furnisheth.

Unsullied did it meet the day,
Like marble, white, like ether, pure;
As if, beneath, some hero lay,
Honoured with costliest sepulture.

My fancy kindled as I gazed;
And, ever as the sun shone forth,
The flattered structure glistened, blazed,
And seemed the proudest thing on earth.

But frost had reared the gorgeous ...

Lo, I am happy, for my eyes have seen
Joy glowing here before me, face to face;
His wings were arched above me for a space,
I kissed his lips, no bitter came between.
The air is vibrant where his feet have been,
And full of song and color is his place.
His wondrous presence sheds about a grace
That lifts and hallows all that once was mean.
I may not sorrow for I saw the light,
Tho' I shall walk in valley ways for long,
I still shall hear the echo of the song,
My life is measured by its one great height.
Joy holds more grace than pain can ever give,
And by my glimpse of joy my soul shall live.

Now is past--the happy now
When we together roved
Beneath the wildwood's oak-tree bough
And Nature said we loved.
Winter's blast
The now since then has crept between,
And left us both apart.
Winters that withered all the green
Have froze the beating heart.
Now is past.

Now is past since last we met
Beneath the hazel bough;
Before the evening sun was set
Her shadow stretched below.
Autumn's blast
Has stained and blighted every bough;
Wild strawberries like her lips
Have left the mosses green below,
Her bloom's upon the hips.
Now is past.

Now is past, is changed agen,
The woods and fields are painted new.
Wild strawberries which both gathered then,
None know now where they grew.
The skys oercast.
Wood stra...

"Dear wolf," complain'd a hungry fox,
"A lean chick's meat, or veteran cock's,
Is all I get by toil or trick:
Of such a living I am sick.
With far less risk, you've better cheer;
A house you need not venture near,
But I must do it, spite of fear.
Pray, make me master of your trade.
And let me by that means be made
The first of all my race that took
Fat mutton to his larder's hook:
Your kindness shall not be repented."
The wolf quite readily consented.
"I have a brother, lately dead:
Go fit his skin to yours," he said.
'Twas done; and then the wolf proceeded:
"Now mark you well what must be done,
The dogs that guard the flock to shun."
The fox the lessons strictly heeded.
At first he boggled in his dress;
But awkwardness grew less and less,<...

November's hail-cloud drifts away,
November's sunbeam wan
Looks coldly on the castle grey,
When forth comes Lady Anne.
The orphan by the oak was set,
Her arms, her feet, were bare;
The hail drops had not melted yet,
Amid her raven hair.
"And, dame," she said, "by all the ties
That child and mother know,
Aid one who never knew these joys,
Relieve an orphan's woe."
The lady said, "An orphan's state
Is hard and sad to bear;
Yet worse the widow'd mother's fate
Who mourns both lord and heir.
"Twelve times the rolling year has sped,
Since, when from vengeance wild
Of fierce Strathallan's Chief I fled
Forth's eddies whelm'd my child."
"Twelve times the year its course has borne,"
The wandering maid replied;
"Since fishers on Saint Bridge...

There runs a crisscross pattern of small leaves
Espalier, in a fading summer air,
And there Ophelia walks, an azure flower,
Whom wind, and snowflakes, and the sudden rain
Of love's wild skies have purified to heaven.
There is a beauty past all weeping now
In that sweet, crooked mouth, that vacant smile;
Only a lonely grey in those mad eyes,
Which never on earth shall learn their loneliness.
And when amid startled birds she sings lament,
Mocking in hope the long voice of the stream,
It seems her heart's lute hath a broken string.
Ivy she hath, that to old ruin clings;
And rosemary, that sees remembrance fade;
And pansies, deeper than the gloom of dreams;
But ah! if utterable, would this earth
Remain the base, unreal thing it is?
Better be out of sight of p...

Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!--
    That rest not day nor night,--
    I hear ye when the light
Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.--

All day the winds were out, and rode
    Their steeds, your tossing crest,--
    To-night the fierce winds rest,
And the moon walks above them her bright road.

Yet none the less ye lift your hands,
    And your despairing cry
    Up to the midnight sky,
And clutch, and trample on the shuddering sands,

That shrink and tremble even in sleep,
    Out of your passionate reach,
    Afraid of your dread speech,
And the more dreadful silence that ye keep

Oh sapping waves!--oh mining waves!--
    Under the oak's gnarled feet,
    And tower, and village street,
Scooping by stealth in darkn...