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THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND.

ALL the night in woe

Lyca's parents go

Over valleys deep,

While the deserts weep.

Tired and woe-begone,

Hoarse with making moan,
Arm in arm, seven days

They traced the desert ways.

Seven nights they sleep

Among shadows deep,

And dream they see their child

Starved in desert wild.

Pale through pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famished, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.

Rising from unrest,

The trembling woman pressed
With feet of weary woe ;

She could no further go.

In his arms he bore

Her, armed with sorrow sore;

Till before their way

A couching lion-lay.

Turning back was vain :
Soon his heavy mane
Bore them to the ground,
Then he stalked around,

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Smelling to his prey ;
But their fears allay

When he licks their hands,
And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes,
Filled with deep surprise ;
And wondering behold
A spirit armed in gold.
On his head a crown,
On his shoulders down
Flowed his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.
'Follow me,' he said;
'Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep.'

Then they followed

Where the vision led,

And saw their sleeping child

Among tigers wild.

To this day they dwell

In a lonely dell,

Nor fear the wolvish how!
Nor the lion's growl.

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A LITTLE black thing among the snow, Crying' weep weep !' in notes of woe! 'Where are thy father and mother? Say! 'They are both gone up to the church to pray.

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Because I was happy upon the heath, And smiled among the winter's snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taugh me to sing the notes of woe.

'And because I am happy and dance and sing, They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and His priest and king, Who make up a heaven of our misery.'

NURSE'S SONG.

WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green,

And whisperings are in the dale,

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise;

Your spring and your day are wasted in play,
And your winter and night in disguise.

THE SICK ROSE.

O ROSE, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

THE FLY.

LITTLE Fly,

Thy summer's play

My thoughtless hand

Has brushed away.

Am not I

A fly like thee?
Or art not thou

A man like me?

I dance,

And drink, and sing,

Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life

And strength and breath,

And the want

Of thought is death;

Then am I

A happy fly.

If I live,

Or if I die.

THE ANGEL.

I DREAMT a dream!. What can it mean? And that I was a maiden Queen

Guarded by an Angel mild:

Witless woe was ne'er beguiled!

And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away;
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart's delight.

So he took his wings, and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red.

I dried my tears, and armed my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.
Soon my Angel came again;

I was armed, he came in vain ;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.

THE TIGER.

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? perfection

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

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