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CALAIS SANDS.

THOUSAND knights have rein'd their steeds

To watch this line of sand-hills run,

Along the never-silent strait,

To Calais glittering in the sun.

To look toward Ardres' Golden Field

Across this wide aërial plain,

Which glows as if the Middle Age
Were gorgeous upon earth again.

Oh, that to share this famous scene
I saw, upon the open sand,

Thy lovely presence at my side,

Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand!

How exquisite thy voice would come,
My darling, on this lonely air!

How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze

Shake loose some lock of soft brown hair!

But now my glance but once hath roved
O'er Calais and its famous plain;

To England's cliffs my gaze is turn'd,
O'er the blue strait mine eyes I strain.

Thou comest! Yes, the vessel's cloud
Hangs dark upon the rolling sea!-
Oh that yon sea-bird's wings were mine
To win one instant's glimpse of thee!

I must not spring to grasp thy hand,
To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye;
But I may stand far off, and gaze,
And watch thee pass unconscious by,

And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts,
Mixt with the idlers on the pier ;-
Ah, might I always rest unseen,
So I might have thee always near!

To-morrow hurry through the fields
Of Flanders to the storied Rhine!
To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close
Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine.

DOVER BEACH.

HE sea is calm to-night,

THE

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits;-on the French coast, the light

Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air !
Only, from the long line of spray

Where the ebb meets the moon-blanch'd sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Egæan, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd;

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating to the breath

Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night!

THE BURIED LIFE.

LIGHT flows our war of mocking words, and yet,

Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!

I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne ;

Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,

And turn those limpid eyes on mine,

And let me read there, love, thy inmost soul!

Alas, is even love too weak

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to reveal

To one another what indeed they feel?

I knew the mass of men conceal'd

Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;

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