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MY AUNT

"What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!"

Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,

Nor bandit cavalcade,

Tore from the trembling father's arms
His all-accomplished maid.

For her how happy had it been!
And Heaven had spared to me

To see one sad, ungathered rose
On my ancestral tree.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

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A BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES

Where is the Queen of Herod's kiss,
And Phryne in her beauty bare;

By what strange sea does Tomyris
With Dido and Cassandra share
Divine Proserpina's despair;

The Wind has blown them all away

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For what poor ghost does Helen care? Where are the Girls of Yesterday?

ENVOY

Alas for lovers! Pair by pair

The Wind has blown them all away: The young and yare, the fond and fair: Where are the Snows of Yesterday?

JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY

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ITAS VANITATUM

vanities!

ard the decrees of Fate are;

-ak the very wise,

small the very great are!

these stale moralities,

er, from your desk you mumble? inst the great and wise,

s with your ceaseless grumble?

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VANITAS VANITATUM

Though thrice a thousand years are past. Since David's son, the sad and splendid, The weary King Ecclesiast,

Upon his awful tablets penned it,

Methinks the text is never stale,

And life is every day renewing Fresh comments on the old old tale Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.

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Hark to the Preacher, preaching still;
He lifts his voice and cries his sermon,
Here at St. Peter's on Cornhill,

As yonder on the Mount of Hermon:

For you and me to heart to take
(O dear beloved brother readers)
To-day as when the good King spake
Beneath the solemn Syrian cedars.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

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