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I think and think: yet still I fail -
Why must this lady wear a veil?
Why thus elect to mask her face
Beneath that dainty web of lace?
The tip of a small nose I see,
And two red lips, set curiously...

("Qu'avez-vous, mes fr'res?")

[XI., September, 18288.]

"Have you prayed tonight, Desdemona?"


THE SISTER

What has happened, my brothers? Your spirit to-day...

A youth, impelled by a burning thirst for knowledge
To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land,
The priesthood's secret learning to explore,
Had passed through many a grade with eager haste,...

Muse of my heart, lover of palaces,
When January comes with wind and sleet,
During the snowy eve's long weariness,
Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet?

Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shoulders...

Unmoor the skiff, - unmoor the skiff, -
The night wind's sigh is on the air,
And o'er the highest Alpine cliff,
The pale moon rises, broad and clear.
The murmuring waves are tranquil now,...

"An inquisition taken for the people
Of the State of Illinois here at LeRoy,
County aforesaid, on the 7th of August,
Anna Domini, nineteen hundred nineteen,
Before me, William Merival, coroner...

Not in the thick of the fight,
Not in the press of the odds,
Do the heroes come to their height,
Or we know the demi-gods.

That stands over till peace.
We can only perceive...

She dwelt within a convent wall
Beside the "blue Moselle,"
And pure and simple was her life
As is the tale I tell.

She never shrank from penance rude,
And was so young and fair,...

Soft and holy Vesper Hour -
Precursor of the night -
How I love thy soothing power,
The hush, the fading light;
Raising those vain thoughts of ours
To higher, holier things -...

I pitied one whose tattered dress
Was patched, and stained with dust and rain;
He smiled on me; I could not guess
The viewless spirit's wide domain.

He said, 'The royal robe I wear...

Underneath the autumn sky,
Haltingly, the lines go by.
Ah, would steps were blithe and gay,
As when first they marched away,
Smile on lip and curl on brow,--
Only white-faced gray-beards now,...

To-day, across our fathers' graves,
The astonished years reveal
The remnant of that desperate host
Which cleansed our East with steel.

Hail and farewell! We greet you here,...

Tune, "Lady Isabella's Tragedy." or "The Stepmother's cruelty."

Of Nero, tyrant, petty king,
Who heretofore did reign
In famed Hibernia, I will sing,
And in a ditty plain.
...

I.

A plague upon the people fell,
A famine after laid them low;
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,
For on them brake the sudden foe;
So thick they died the people cried,...

"Thou hast not lived! No aim of earth
Thy body serves, nor home nor birth;
No children's eyes look up to thee
To solace thy mortality."

"Thou hast not lived! Forbidden seas...

[5]
(1862.)


When tempest winnowed grain from bran;
And men were looking for a man,
Authority called you to the van,
McClellan:
Along the line the plaudit ran,...

Hark--how the church-bells thundering harmony
Stuns the glad ear! tidings of joy have come,
Good tidings of great joy! two gallant ships
Met on the element,--they met, they fought...

England! where the sacred flame
Burns before the inmost shrine,
Where the lips that love thy name
Consecrate their hopes and thine,
Where the banners of thy dead
Weave their shadows overhead,...

The Pervigilium Veneris--of unknown authorship, but clearly belonging to the late literature of the Roman Empire--has survived in two MSS., both preserved at Paris in the Biblioth'que Nationale.
...

A Saga of Yule.

Far to the South a star,
Bright-shining over all;
And a sound of voices singing,
'Round a Babe in an ox's-stall.

Three Kings a-riding, riding,...