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There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon;
Where she was going I could not but ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom....

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle
The rude hand of Progress has thrust it aside.
No more to its motion o'er sleep's fairy ocean,
Our play-weary wayfarers peacefully glide.
...

"Why are you so bent down before your time,
Old mason? Many have not left their prime
So far behind at your age, and can still
Stand full upright at will."

He pointed to the mansion-front hard by,...

The Old Year's gone away
To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
In either shade or sun:...

It passed like the breath of the night-wind away,
It fled like a mist at the dawn of the day;
It lasted its moment, then backward was hurled,
Another increase to the age of the world.
...

The old year is dying,
Its last hour is hieing
Over the verge;
The night winds are plying,
And are mournfully sighing
Its funeral dirge.

And now, in its even,
While its spirit is riven...

How swift they go,
Life's many years,
With their winds of woe
And their storms of tears,
And their darkest of nights whose shadowy slopes
Are lit with the flashes of starriest hopes,...

Low at my feet there lies to-night
A crushed and withered rose;
Within its heart of fading red
No crimson fire glows;
For o'er its leaves the frost of death
Steals like an icy breath;...

I.

As one in sorrow looks upon
The dead face of a loyal friend,
By the dim light of New Year's dawn
I saw the Old Year end.

Upon the pallid features lay...

One evening at dusk as Noah stood on his Ark,
Putting green oil in starboard side lamp,
His wife came along and said, 'Noah, summat's wrong,
Our cabin is getting quite damp.
...

My pensive SARA! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown
With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle,...

Sadly I walk'd within the field,
To see what comfort it would yield;
And as I went my private way,
An olive-branch before me lay;
And seeing it, I made a stay,
And took it up, and view'd it; then...

There is a heaven, for ever, day by day,
The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so.
There is a hell, I 'm quite as sure; for pray,
If there were not, where would my neighbours go?

You kin talk about yer anthems
An' yer arias an' sich,
An' yer modern choir-singin'
That you think so awful rich;
But you orter heerd us youngsters
In the times now far away,...

Don told me that he loved me dear
Where down the range Whioola pours;
And when I laughed and would not hear
He flung away to fight the wars.
He flung away, how should he know...

I dreamt I was in love again
With the One Before the Last,
And smiled to greet the pleasant pain
Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been
The pain when it did live,...

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith,
All things are vanity. The eye and ear
Cannot be filled with what they see and hear.
Like early dew, or like the sudden breath...

Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field,
With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
...

I love to see the little stars
All dancing to one tune;
I think quite highly of the Sun,
And kindly of the Moon.



The million forests of the Earth
Come trooping in to tea....

I.

Storms gather o'er thy path,
Christian! - the sullen, tempest-darkened sky
Grows lurid with the elemental wrath, -
Say, whither wilt thou fly?

God is my Refuge! - let the tempests come,...