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And sometimes, like a gleaner, thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourne;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

KEATS.

ADONIS SLEEPING.

IN midst of all there lay a sleeping youth,
Of fondest beauty. Sideway his face reposed
On one white arm, and tenderly unclosed,
By tenderest passion, a faint damask mouth
To slumbery pout; just as the coming south
Disparts a dew-lipped rose. Above his head
Four lily stalks did their white honours wed
To make a coronal; and round him grew
All tendrils green of every form and hue,
Together intertwined and trammeled fresh :
The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh,
Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine
Of velvet leaves, and bugle-blooms divine.

Hard by

Stood serene cupids, watching silently,

One, kneeling to a lyre, touched the strings,
Muffling to death the pathos with his wings;
And, ever and anon, uprose to look
At the youth's slumber; while another took
A willow bough, distilling odorous dew,
And shook it on his hair; another flew
In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise
Rained violets upon his sleeping eyes.

KEATS.

THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.

'Twas in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:

There were some that ran, and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,

And souls untouched by sin,

To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun

Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran,

Turning to mirth all things of earth,

As only boyhood can:

But the Usher sat remote from all,

A melancholy man!

His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze; For a burning thought was in his brow,

And his bosom ill at ease:

So he leaned his head on his hands, and read

The book between his knees!

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside,

For the peace of his soul he read that book

In the golden eventide :

Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the ponderous tome,
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strained the dusty covers close,
And fixed the brazen hasp:
"O God! could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"

Then leaping on his feet upright,
Some moody turns he took,-
Now up the mead, then down the mead,

And past a shady nook,

And lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book.

"My gentle lad, what is't you read

Romance or fairy fable?

Or is it some historic page,

Of kings and crowns unstable?"

The young boy gave an upward glance,"It is the 'Death of Abel.'"

The usher took six hasty strides,
As smit with sudden pain,-
Six hasty strides beyond the place,
Then slowly back again:

And down he sat beside the lad,
And talked with him of Cain;

And, long since then, of bloody men,
Whose deeds tradition saves;

Of lonely folk cut off unseen,
And hid in sudden graves;

Of horrid stabs, in graves forlorn,
And murders done in caves;

And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod,--
Ay, how the ghastly hand will point,
To show the burial clod;

And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God!

He told how murderers walk the earth

Beneath the curse of Cain,

With crimson clouds before their eyes,

And flames before their brain:

For blood has left upon their souls

Its everlasting stain!

"And well," quoth he, "I know for truth,

Their pangs must be extreme,

Woe, woe, unutterable woe,

Who spill life's sacred stream!

For why? Methought, last night, I wrought A murder, in a dream!

"One that had never done me wrong,

A feeble man and old;

I led him to a lonely field,

The moon shone clear and cold:

Now here, said I, this man shall die,
And I will have his gold!

"Two sudden blows with a rugged stick,
And one with a heavy stone,

One hurried gash with a hasty knife,--
And then the deed was done :
There was nothing lying at my foot
But lifeless flesh and bone!

"Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,
That could not do me ill!

And yet I feared him all the more,
For lying there so still:

There was a manhood in his look

That murder could not kill!

"And lo! the universal air

Seemed lit with ghastly flame ;Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes Were looking down in blame:

I took the dead man by his hand,

And called upon his name!

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