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All subtle thought, all curious fears,
Borne down by gladness so complete,
She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet
With costly spikenard and with tears.

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,
Whose loves in higher love endure;
What souls possess themselves so pure,
Or is there blessedness like theirs?

SPRING-TIDE.

BY TENNYSON.

Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail

On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the sea-mew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds that change their sky
To build and brood; that live their lives

S

breast

From land to land; and in my
Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

TO-MORROW.

BY LONGFELLOW.

LORD, what am I, that with unceasing care
Thou did'st seek after me-that thou did'st wait,
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there ?
O strange delusion !—that I did not greet
Thy blest approach, and oh, to Heaven how lost
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost

Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon thy feet!
How oft my guardian angel gently cried,

"Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
How He persists to knock and wait for thee!"
And oh ! how often to that voice of sorrow,
"To-morrow we will open," I replied,

And when the morrow came, I answered still-
To-morrow.

SEA-WEED.

BY LONGFELLOW.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic

Storm-wind of the Equinox,

Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks.

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off bright Azore;
From Bahama; and the dashing
Silver flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the trembling surf that buries
The Orkneyan Skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides:
And from wrecks of ships and drifting
Spars uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long

From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,

Floats some fragments of a song.

From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavour
That forever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,
Tempest shattered,

Floating waste and desolate;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.

THE LEGEND OF THE CROSSBILL.

(From the German of Julius Mosen.)

BY LONGFELLOW.

On the cross the dying Saviour
Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm,
Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling
In his pierced and bleeding palm.

And by all the world forsaken
Sees he how with zealous care

At the ruthless nail of iron

A little bird is striving there.

Stained with blood and never tiring,
With its beak it doth not cease,

From the cross 'twould free the Saviour,
Its Creator's Son release.

And the Saviour speaks in mildness, "Blest be thou of all the good! Bear as token of this moment

Marks of blood and holy rood!"

And that bird is called the crossbill,
Covered all with blood so clear,
In the groves of pine it singeth
Songs like legends strange to hear.

A PSALM OF LIFE.

BY LONGFELLOW.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

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