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As at a festival; now all's so silent,

That I might hear the footsteps of a child.

The sound of dissolute mirth hath ceased, the lamps
Are spent, the voice of music broken off.

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No watchman's tread comes from the silent wall,
There are nor lights nor voices in the towers.
The hungry have given up their idle search
For food, the gazers on the heavens are gone;
Even Fear's at rest- all still as in a sepulchre !
And thou liest sleeping, O Jerusalem!

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A deeper slumber could not fall upon thee,
If thou wert desolate of all thy children,
And thy razed streets a dwelling-place for owls.

I do mistake! this is the Wilderness,

The Desert, where winds pass and make no sound,
And not the populous city, the besieged

And overhung with tempest. Why

my voice,

My motion, breaks upon the oppressive stillness
Like a forbidden and disturbing sound.

The very air's asleep; my feeblest breathing
Is audible-I'll think my prayers · and then
Ha! 'tis the thunder of the Living God!

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It peals! it crashes! it comes down in fire!
Again!-it is the engine of the foe;

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Our walls are dust before it Wake- oh wake!—

O Israel!-O Jerusalem! awake!

Why shouldst thou wake? thy foe is in the heavens!

Yea, thy judicial slumber weighs thee down,

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And gives thee, O lost city! to the Gentile,

Defenceless, unresisting.

It rolls down,

As though the Everlasting raged not now
Against our guilty Zion, but did mingle
The universal world in our destruction,

And all mankind were destined for a sacrifice

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On Israel's funeral pile. O Crucified!

Here, here, where thou didst suffer, I beseech thee,
Even by thy cross!

Hark! now in impious rivalry

Man thunders. In the centre of our streets
The Gentile trumpet, the triumphant shouts
Of onset; and I, — I, a trembling girl,
Alone, awake, abroad.

Now

Oh! now ye wake.

ye pour forth, and hideous Massacre,

Loathing his bloodless conquest, joys to see you
Thus naked and unarmed.

EXERCISE XIV.

The Closing Year.-GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

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'Tis midnight's holy hour- and silence now
Is brooding like a gentle Spirit o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling — 't is the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train

Is sweeping past, yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh—and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand, —

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe,
In mournful cadences that come abroad

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Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
Gone from the Earth for ever.

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'Tis a time

For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,

Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of Ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful

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And holy visions, that have passed away,

And left no shadow of their loveliness

On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts

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The coffin-lid of Hope, and Joy, and Love;

And, bending mournfully above the pale

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year

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Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful—
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man and the haughty form

Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous - and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of mid-day—and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,

It heralded its millions to their home

Remorseless Time

In the dim land of dreams.

Fierce Spirit of the Glass and Scythe - what power

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Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity? On, still on
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,

The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,

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And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain-crag,— but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep

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O'er Earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast

Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles

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Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back

To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear

To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow

Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,

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Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,

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And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void; yet Time,
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,

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Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

EXERCISE XV.

The Spirit of Poetry.-H. W. LONGFELLOW.

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the south wind blows;
Where underneath the white thorn in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast-ushering star of morning comes,
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,

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Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.

And frequent, on the everlasting hills,

Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself

In all the dark embroidery of the storm,

And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid

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The silent majesty of these deep woods,

Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine, and the pure bright air,

Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.

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For them there was an eloquent voice in all

The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds;
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun

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