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He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old

no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting

sea!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

MY PLAYMATE

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,

The orchard birds sang clear The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home,

And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine :
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
The seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun

Before her come and go.

There haply with her jewelled hands

She smooths her silken gown,

No more the homespun lap wherein

I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,

The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams!

I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

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That other hands with nuts are filled,

And other laps with flowers?

O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.

The winds so sweet with birch and fern

A sweeter memory blow;

And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.

And still the pines of Ramoth wood

Are moaning like the sea,

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The moaning of the sea of change

Between myself and thee!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

YOUNG LOCHINVAR

Он, young Lochinvar is come out of the West! Through all the wide Border his steed is the best; And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had

none;

He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar !

He stay'd not for brake and he stopp'd not for

stone;

He swam the Eske river where ford there was

none;

But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented; the gallant came late ;

For a laggard in love and a dastard in war
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall,

Among bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and

all;

Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his

sword,

For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,

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Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

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I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you de-
nied;

Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;
And now am I come with this lost Love of mine
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochin-

var!"

The bride kiss'd the goblet, the knight took it up, He quaff'd off the wine and he threw down the cup; She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh,

With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye : — He took her soft hand ere her mother could bar; "Now tread we a measure!

said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace :

While her mother did fret and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;

And the bride-maidens whispered, ""T were better by far

To have match'd our fair cousin with young

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