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LOVE thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought.

True love turn'd round on fixed poles,

Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls.

But pamper not a hasty time,

Nor feed with crude imaginings The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, That every sophister can lime.

Deliver not the tasks of might

To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait for day,

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.

Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

Watch what main-currents draw the years:

Cut Prejudice against the grain : But gentle words are always gain : Regard the weakness of thy peers :

Nor toil for title, place, or touch

Of pension, neither count on praise : It grows to guerdon after-days: Nor deal in watch-words overmuch :

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We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul.

So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that, which flies, And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy.

A saying, hard to shape in act;

For all the past of Time reveals
A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,
Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.

Ev'n now we hear with inward strife
A motion toiling in the gloom -
The Spirit of the years to come
Yearning to mix himself with Life.
A slow-develop'd strength awaits

Completion in a painful school;
Phantoms of other forms of rule,
New Majesties of mighty States —

The warders of the growing hour,

But vague in vapor, hard to mark; And round them sea and air are dark With great contrivances of Power.

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If New and Old, disastrous feud,
Must ever shock, like armed foes,
And this be true, till Time shall close,
That Principles are rain'd in blood;

Not yet the wise of heart would cease
To hold his hope thro' shame and guilt,
But with his hand against the hilt,
Would pace the troubled land, like Peace;

Not less, tho' dogs of Faction bay,

Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away

It clack'd and cackled louder.

Would love the gleams of good that broke | But ah! the more the white goose laid
From either side, nor veil his eyes:
And if some dreadful need should rise
Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke:

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It clutter'd here, it chuckled there;
It stirr'd the old wife's mettle :
She shifted in her elbow-chair,

And hurl'd the pan and kettle.

"A quinsy choke thy cursed note!"
Then wax'd her anger stronger.
"Go, take the goose, and wring her throat,
I will not bear it longer."

Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat ;
Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer.
The goose flew this way and flew that,
And fill'd the house with clamor.

As head and heels upon the floor
They flounder'd all together,
There strode a stranger to the door,
And it was windy weather:

He took the goose upon his arm,

He utter'd words of scorning;
"So keep you cold, or keep you warm,
It is a stormy morning."

The wild wind rang from park and plain,
Till all the tables danced again,
And round the attics rumbled,

And half the chimneys tumbled.

The glass blew in, the fire blew out,
The blast was hard and harder.
Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,

And a whirlwind clear'd the larder:

And while on all sides breaking loose
Her household fled the danger,
Quoth she, "The Devil take the goose,
And God forget the stranger!"

ENGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS.

THE EPIC.

(PUBLISHED 1842.)

AT Francis Allen's on the Christmas

eve,

The game of forfeits done the girls all kiss'd

Beneath the sacred bush and past awayThe parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,

The host, and I sat round the wassailbowl,

Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk,

How all the old honor had from Christmas gone,

Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games

In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond,

Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,

I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commission

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So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fall'n in Lyonness about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound
was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi-

vere :

"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such

a sleep
They sleep the men I loved. I think
that we

Shall nevermore, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly

deeds,

Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come
again

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By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.
There drew he forth the brand Excali-

bur,

Ando'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:

For all the haft twinkled with diamond
sparks,

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he
stood,

This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw but at the last it seem'd
- but let what will Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd
There in the many-knotted waterflags,
That whistled stiff and dry about the

I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride for thou remem-
berest how

In those old days, one summer noon, an

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marge.

So strode he back slow to the wounded
King.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedi

vere :

"Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?

What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?"

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag.' To whom replied King Arthur, faint

and pale:

19

"Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy
name,

Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
For surer sign had follow'd, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the
thing

I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me
word."

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the

mere,

Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in
thought;

But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he

smote

His palms together, and he cried aloud. "And if indeed I cast the brand away. Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,

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