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THE RIVULET.

The violet there, in soft May dew,
Comes up, as modest and as blue;
As green amid thy current's stress,
Floats the scarce-rooted watercress:
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen,
Still chirps as merrily as then.

Thou changest not-but I am changed,
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past-
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I've tried the world-it wears no more

The colouring of romance it wore.

Yet well has Nature kept the truth

She promised to my earliest youth.
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.

A few brief years shall pass away, And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,

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Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of fate
Indulge my life so long a date,)
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood's favourite brook.
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream;
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current's merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou met'st my infant sight.

And I shall sleep-and on thy side, As ages after ages glide, Children their early sports shall try, And pass to hoary age and die.

But thou, unchanged from year to year,

Gayly shalt play and glitter here; Amid young flowers and tender grass

Thy endless infancy shalt pass;

And, singing down thy narrow glen,

Shalt mock the fading race of men.

MARCH.

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MARCH.

THE stormy March is come at last,

With wind, and cloud, and changing skies;

I hear the rushing of the blast,

That through the snowy valley flies.

Ah, passing few are they who speak,

Wild stormy month! in praise of thee; Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, Thou art a welcome month to me.

For thou, to northern lands, again

The glad and glorious sun dost bring,

And thou hast joined the gentle train

And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

And, in thy reign of blast and storm,

Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, When the changed winds are soft and warm, And heaven puts on the blue of May.

H

Then sing aloud the gushing rills

And the full springs, from frost set free, That, brightly leaping down the hills, Are just set out to meet the sea.

The year's departing beauty hides
Of wintry storms the sullen threat;

But in thy sternest frown abides
A look of kindly promise yet.

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies, And that soft time of sunny showers, When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,

Seems of a brighter world than ours.

SONNET TO

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SONNET TO

Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine.
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes,-but not for thine-
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;

And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.

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