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To whom the fates have given
For sport the sky's blue height;
Where cloud with cloud is meeting,
I see thy bright wings beating,
And flashing and retreating
Against the morning light!

No toilsome task thou knowest,
No day with tears begun,
Lighthearted forth thou goest
At morn to meet the sun;
All day thy song thou triest
From lowest note to highest,
And all unweary fliest
Until the day be done.

Thou knowest no toil for raiment,
No pain of mocked desire;
The skies are thy song's payment,
The sun thy throne of fire.
Thou askest and receivest,
And if perchance thou grievest,
At will the world thou leavest
On wings that never tire.

Yet we of grosser stature
Have in thy flight a part,
We share thy tameless nature,
We have a nobler art.

When thou art tired returning,
There mount in love and yearning,
Toward suns of keener burning,
The winged thoughts of our heart.

Within our souls are folden
The wings thou canst not share,
We see a dawn more golden,
We breathe diviner air:
In sleep when toil is ended,
In prayer with hope attended,
We traverse ways more splendid,
And see a world more fair.

Yet oft, when day is gleaming
On sleepless eyes, we vow

We would exchange our dreaming
To be one hour as thou!
Such discontent we borrow,
That we forget in sorrow

We have the long to-morrow,
Thou only hast the NOW.

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My wife and I had kissed at morn,
My children's lips were full of song;
O friend, it seemed such cruel wrong,
My life so full, and yours forlorn!

We slept last night clasped hand in hand,
Secure and calm and never knew
How fared the lonely hours with you,
What time those dying lips you fanned.

Ve dreamed of love, and did not see
The shadow pass across our dream ;
We heard the murmur of a stream,
Not death's, for it ran bright and free.

And in the dark her gentle soul
Passed out, but oh! we knew it not!
My babe slept fast within her cot,
While yours woke to the slow bell's toll.

She paused a moment, who can tell?-
Before our windows, but we lay
So deep in sleep she went away,
And only smiled a sad farewell!

It would be like her; well we know
How oft she waked while others slept-
She never woke us when she wept,
It would be like her thus to go!

Ah, friend! you let her stray too far
Within the shadow-haunted wood,
Where deep thoughts never understood
Breathe on us and like anguish are.

One day within that gloom there shone A heavenly dawn, and with wide eyes She saw God's city crown the skies, Since when she hasted to be gone.

much you yielded to her grace ; ouncing self, she thus became angel with a human name, ni angels coveted her face.

Earth's door you set so wide, alack
She saw God's gardens, and she went
A moment forth to look; she meant
No wrong, but oh! she came not back

Dear friend, what can I say or sing,
But this, that she is happy there?
We will not grudge those gardens fair
Where her light feet are wandering.

The child at play is ignorant
Of tedious hours; the years for you
To her are moments: and you too
Will join her ere she feels your want.

The path she wends we cannot track:
And yet some instinct makes us know
Hers is the joy, and ours the woe,
We dare not wish her to come back!

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Frances Isabel Parnell

AFTER DEATH

SHALL mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country? Shall mine eyes behold thy glory?

Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the sun-blaze break at last upon thy story?

When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle, as a sweet new sister hail thee,

Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence, that have known but to bewail thee?

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A SONG OF DERIVATIONS

I COME from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?

Down, through long links of death and birth,

From the past poets of the earth. My immortality is there.

I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
Awoke my breath i' the young world's air.
I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and
flower.

Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose

In morning lands, in distant hills;
And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.

Voices I have not heard possessed

My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed

With relics of the far unknown;

And mixed with memories not my own The sweet streams throng into my breast.

Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me

Woke long ago, and far apart Heavily on this little heart Presses this immortality.

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My Fair, no beauty of thine will last,
Save in my love's eternity.
Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost forever - their moment past -
Except the few thou givest to me.

Thy sweet words vanish day by day,
As all breath of mortality;
Thy laughter, done, must cease to be,
And all thy dear tones pass away,

Except the few that sing to me.

Hide then within my heart, oh, hide
All thou art loath should go from thee
Be kinder to thyself and me.
My cupful from this river's tide
Shall never reach the long sad sea

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I fear much more must flow from worthier veins

Ere England's hurt be healed. Crom. How powerful are base things to destroy !

The brute's part in them kills the god's in

us,

And robs the world of many glorious deeds;

In all the histories of famous men

We never find the greatest overthrown
Of such as were their equals, but the head,
Screened of its laurels from the lightning's
flash,

Falls by some chance blow of an obscure hand,

And glory cannot guard the hero's heart
Against the least knave's dagger.
Hamp.
You cannot help me.
Save yourself, sir; my best prayers keep
you safe-

I fain would win as far as yonder house; It was my dear dead wife's; such shapes are there

As I would see about my dying bed,
To make me sure of heaven

me, love,

Forgive

That I am loath to come yet to thy heart; I have only lived without thee, O my best, That I might live for England! Is Cromwell come?

Crom. How is it with you, cousin? Hamp. Very well; With hope to be soon better; gentle cousin,

I have scant time to speak and much to

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eyes

God shall seclude from sight of our gross Earth,

And for the dull light of our darker day Give all heaven to his vision, star with star

Shining, and splendid and sonorous spheres To make him music; and those sacred lips, More eloquent than the Mantuan's, praising thee,

Shall make thy fame a memory for all time,

And set a loftier laurel on thy head
Than any gathered from red fields of war ;
So great shall England's great need make
thee, Cromwell;

Whom thou forget not still to love and serve,

Holding thy greatness given to make her great,

Thy strength to keep her strong; then (since oblivion

Is what men chiefly fear in death), dear cousin,

I would not be forgotten of thy love.
And now I am loath the last words I shall

speak

Must be of strife yet I must utter them; Be not of those that vex the angry times With meek-mouthed proffers of rejected

peace;

When men have set the justice of their

cause

To sharp arbitrament of answering arms, Tougues should keep mute, and steel hol speech with steel,

Till victory can plead the conquered's

cause,

And make soft mercy no more dangerous. We must o'ercome our foes to make them friends. These Thy hand, dear cousin thy voice

...

Sweet, I hear

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