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Begins the clash and clang that tells
The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
The dead leaf trembles to the bells.

O happy hour! and happier hours
Await them. Many a merry face
Salutes them,-maidens of the place,
That pelt us in the porch with flowers.

O happy hour! behold the bride

With him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass the grave

That has to-day its sunny side.

To-day the grave is bright for me,

For them the light of life increased

Who stay to share the morning feast,

Who rest to-night beside the sea.

Let all my genial spirits advance

To meet and greet a whiter sun;
My drooping memory will not shun

The foaming grape of eastern France.

It circles round, and fancy plays,

And hearts are warmed and faces bloom,
As drinking health to bride and groom,

We wish them store of happy days.

Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,

Perchance, perchance, among the rest,

And, though in silence, wishing joy.

But they must go; the time draws on,

And those white-favored horses wait; They rise, but linger, it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.

A shade falls on us like the dark

From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,

Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she looked, and what he said,
And back we come at fall of dew.

Again the feast, the speech, the glee,

The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three times three,

And last the dance;-till I retire :

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire:

And rise, O moon, from yonder down,
Till over down and over dale
All night the shining vapor sail
pass the silent-lighted town,

And

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,
And catch at every mountain head,

And o'er the friths that branch and spread

Their sleeping silver through the hills;

And touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendor fall

To spangle all the happy shores

By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,
A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds,

And, moved through life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge; under whose command
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book;

No longer half-akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffered, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit;

Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type,
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God,

That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.

MAUD.

I.

1.

I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with bloodred heath,

The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,

And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers • Death.'

2.

For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was

found,

His who had given me life-O father! O God! was it well?.

Mangled, and flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground:

There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he

fell.

3.

Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail'd,

And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair,

And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken

worldling wail'd,

And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air.

4.

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were

stirr'd

By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright,

And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard

The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night.

5.

Villany somewhere! whose ? One says, we are

villains all.

Not he his honest fame should at least by me be maintain'd:

But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall,

Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us flaccid and drain’d.

6.

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse,

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its

own;

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better

or worse

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone ?

7.

But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind,

When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word ?

Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that

of a kind

The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword.

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