Disjointed numbers; sense unknit ; My scalded eyes no longer brook Go, shut the leaves, and clasp the book. I OLD FAMILIAR FACES. HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. I have been laughing, I have been carousing, I loved a love once, fairest among women; I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood; Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces. Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. LEIGH HUNT. Born 1784. Died 1859. You THE FISH, THE MAN, AND THE SPIRIT. The Man to the Fish. YOU strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea, Gulping salt-water everlastingly, Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste; And you all shapes beside that fishy be,— O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights, What is 't you do? what life lead? eh, dull goggles? How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles, A Fish answers. Amazing monster! that, for aught I know, With the first sight of thee didst make our race For ever stare! O, flat and shocking face, Grimly divided from the breast below! With a split body, and most ridiculous pace, O breather of unbreathable, sword sharp air, I sometimes see of ye an actual pair Go by, linked fin by fin! most odiously. The Fish turns into a Man, and then into a Spirit, and again speaks. O man! and loathe, but with a sort of love : Man's life is warm, glad, sad, twixt loves and graves, ABOU BEN ADHEM, AND THE ANGEL. ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, An Angel, writing in a book of gold : Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the Presence in the room he said, 'What writest thou?'-the Vision raised its head, The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names of those whom love of God had blessed, And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. To T. L. H., SIX YEARS OLD, DURING A SICKNESS. LEEP breathes at last from out thee, SLE My little patient boy; And balmy rest about thee Smoothes off the day's annoy. I sit me down and think Of all thy winning ways; Thy sidelong pillowed meekness, That wipes thy quiet tears, These, these are things that may demand Sorrows, I've had severe ones, But when thy fingers press Ah, first-born of thy mother, Kind playmate of thy brother, My prayers shall hold thee round. To say 'he has departed'— 'His voice-his face-is gone!' To feel impatient-hearted, Yet feel we must bear on ; Ah, I could not endure Yes still he's fixed and sleeping, |