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Ye are fled, sweet, vague, and vain,
So I cannot dream again.

I have left a feverish pillow
For thy soothing song:
Alas, each fairy billow

An image bears along!

Look where I will, I only see
One face too much beloved by me.

In vain my heart remembers
What pleasure used to be;
My past thoughts are but embers
Consumed by love for thee.

I wish to love thee less-and feel
A deeper fondness o'er me steal.

THE DANCING GIRL.

A LIGHT and joyous figure, one that seems

As if the air were her own element;

Begirt with cheerful thoughts, and bringing back
Old days, when nymphs upon Arcadian plains
Made musical the wind, and in the sun

Flashed their bright cymbals and their whitest hands
These were the days of poetry-the woods
Were haunted with sweet shadows; and the caves
Odorous with moss, and lit with shining spars,

Were homes where Naiades met some graceful youth

Beneath the moonlit heaven-all this is past; Ours is a darker and a sadder age;

Heaven help us through it!—'tis a weary world, The dust and ashes of a happier time.

DIRGE.

LAY her in the gentle earth,
Where the summer maketh mirth;
Where young violets have birth;

Where the lily bendeth.

Lay her there, the lovely one!
With the rose, her funeral stone;
And for tears, such showers alone

As the rain of April lendetn.

From the midnight's quiet hour
Will come dews of holy power,

O'er the sweetest human flower

That was ever loved.

But she was too fair and dear

For our troubled pathway here;

Heaven, that was her natural sphere,

Has its own removed.

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SCENES IN LONDON.

LIFE in its many shapes was there,

The busy and the gay :

Faces that seemed too young and fair

To ever know decay.

Wealth, with its waste, its pomp, and pride,

Led forth its glittering train;

And poverty's pale face beside

Asked aid, and asked in vain.

The shops were filled from many lands-
Toys, silks, and gems, and flowers;
The patient work of many hands,
The hope of many hours.

Yet 'mid life's myriad shapes around,
There was a sigh of death;
There rose a melancholy sound-

The bugle's wailing breath.

They played a mournful Scottish air,

That on his native hill

Had caught the notes the night winds bear

From weeping leaf and rill.

"Twas strange to hear that sad wild strain

Its warning music shed,

Rising above life's busy train,

In memory of the dead. ·

There came a slow and silent band
In sad procession by:
Reversed the musket in each hand,
And downcast every eye.

They bore the soldier to his grave;
The sympathizing crowd
Divided like a parted wave

By some dark vessel ploughed.

A moment, and all sounds were mute,
For awe was over all;

You heard the soldier's measured foot,
The bugle's wailing call.

The gloves were laid upon

the bier,

The helmet and the sword;

The drooping war-horse followed near,
As he, too, mourned his lord.

Slowly-I followed too-they led

To where a church arose,
And flung a shadow o'er the dead

Deep as their own repose.

Green trees were there-beneath the shade

Of one was made a grave;
And there to his last rest was laid

The weary and the brave.

They fired a volley o'er the bed

Of an unconscious ear;

The birds sprang fluttering overhead,
Struck with a sudden fear.

All left the ground; the bugles died Away upon the wind;

Only the tree's green branches sighed O'er him they left behind.

Again, all filled with light and breath,
I passed the crowded street-
O, great extremes of life and death,
How strangely do ye meet!

THE ALTERED RIVER.

THOU lovely river, thou art now
As fair as fair can be ;

Pale flowers wreathe upon thy brow,
The rose bends over thee.

Only the morning sun hath leave
To turn thy waves to light,

Cool shade the willow branches weave
When noon becomes too bright.

The lilies are the only boats

Upon thy diamond plain,

The swan alone in silence floats

Around thy charmed domain.

The moss-bank's fresh embroidery,

With fairy favors starred,

Seems made the summer haunt to be Of melancholy bard.

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