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"However, you still keep your eyes;
And sure, to see one's loves and friends,
For legs and arms would make amends."
"Perhaps," says Dobson' "so it might;
But latterly I've lost my sight."

"This is a shocking story, 'faith;

Yet there's some comfort still," says Death: "Each strives your sadness to amuse :

I warrant you hear all the news."

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"There's none," cries he; "and if there were, I'm grown so deaf, I could not hear." "Nay then," the spectre stern rejoin'd, "These are unjustifiable yearnings:

If you are Lame, and Deaf, and Blind,
You've had your Three sufficient Warnings.
So come along, no more we'll part:"
He said, and touch'd him with his dart;—
And now old Dobson, turning pale,

Yields to his fate.

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LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING.

Now Nature hangs her mantle green

On every blooming tree,

And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,

And glads the azure skies;

But naught can glad the weary wight

That fast in durance lies.

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,

Aloft on dewy wing;

The merle, in his noontide bower,

Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild wi' many a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,

And milk-white is the slae;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland

May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,

Maun lie in prison strang.

I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;

Fu' lightly raise I in the morn,

As blithe lay down at e'en:

And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,

And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,

larks

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bluckbird

thrush

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brow

sloe 20

among

must strong

Grim vengeance, yet, shall whet a sword

That through thy soul shall gae: The weeping blood in woman's breast

Was never known to thee;

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Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe drops

Frae woman's pitying e'e.

from eyes

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My son ! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;

And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!

God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,

Or turn their hearts to thee:

would look

And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me.

O! soon, to me, may summer-suns
Nae mair light up the morn!

Nae mair to me the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!

And in the narrow house o' death

Let winter round me rave;

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And the next flowers that deck the spring, 55
Bloom on my peaceful grave.

BURNS.

THE HERMIT.

FAR in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew;
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well:
Remote from men, with God he pass'd the days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.

A life so sacred, such serene repose,
Seem'd heaven itself, till one suggestion rose-
That vice should triumph, virtue vice obey;
This sprang some doubt of Providence's sway:

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His hopes no more a certain prospect boast,
And all the tenour of his soul is lost:

So, when a smooth expanse receives imprest
Calm nature's image on its watery breast,
Down bend the banks, the trees depending grow, 15
And skies beneath with answering colours glow:
But if a stone the gentle sea divide,

Swift ruffling circles curl on every side,

And glimmering fragments of a broken sun,
Banks, trees, and skies, in thick disorder run.

To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight,
To find if books, or swains, report it right,
(For yet by swains alone the world he knew,
Whose feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew,)
He quits his cell; the pilgrim staff he bore,
And fix'd the scallop in his hat before;
Then with the rising sun a journey went,
Sedate to think, and watching each event.

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The morn was wasted in the pathless grass, And long and lonesome was the wild to pass; But when the southern sun had warm'd the day, A youth came posting o'er a crossing way; His raiment decent, his complexion fair, And soft in graceful ringlets waved his hair. Then near approaching, "Father, hail!" he cried; 35 And, "Hail, my son !" the reverend Sire replied: Words follow'd words, from question answer flow'd, And talk of various kind deceived the road, Till with each other pleased, and loath to part, While in their age they differ, join in heart: Thus stands an aged elm in ivy bound, Thus youthful ivy clasps an elm around.

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Now sunk the sun; the closing hour of day Came onward, mantled o'er with sober grey; Nature in silence bade the world repose; When near the road a stately palace rose:

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There by the moon through ranks of trees they pass, Whose verdure crown'd their sloping sides of grass.

It chanced the noble master of the dome

Still made his house the wandering stranger's home:50
Yet still the kindness, from a thirst of praise,
Proved the vain flourish of expensive ease.
The pair arrive: the liveried servants wait;
Their lord receives them at the pompous gate.
The table groans with costly piles of food,
And all is more than hospitably good.

Then, led to rest, the day's long toil they drown,
Deep sunk in sleep, and silk, and heaps of down.

At length 't is morn, and at the dawn of day,

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Along the wide canals the zephyrs play:
Fresh o'er the gay parterres the breezes creep,
And shake the neighbouring wood to banish sleep.

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Up rise the guests, obedient to the call;

An early banquet deck'd the splendid hall;
Rich luscious wine a golden goblet graced,
Which the kind master forced the guests to taste.

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Then, pleased and thankful, from the porch they go;
And, but the landlord, none had cause for woe:
His cup was vanish'd; for in secret guise

The younger guest purloin'd the glittering prize. 70
As one who spies a serpent in his way,
Glistening and basking in the sunny ray,
Disorder'd stops to shun the danger near,

Then walks with faintness on, and looks with fear;

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