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Ay, be silent! let them hear each other breathing,

For a moment, mouth to mouth;

Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh wreathing, Of their tender human youth;

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

Is not all the life God giveth them to feel;

Let them prove their inward souls against the notion That they live in you, or under you. O wheels! Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

As if fate in each were stark!

And the childrens' souls, which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the weary children, O my brothers!
That they look to Him and pray,

For the bless'd One who blesseth all the others,

To bless them another day.

They answer-"Who is God that He should hear us,"
While this rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass unhearing at least, answer not a word;
And we hear not, (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door.

Is it likely God with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more?

Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
And at midnight's hour of harm,

"Our Father!" looking upward in our chamber,
We say softly for a charm.

We say no other words except "Our Father!"

And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both in His right hand, which is strong. Our Father! If He heard us, He world surelyFor they call Him good and mild

Answer, smiling down the steep would very purely, "Come and rest with me, my child."

"But no," say the children, weeping faster,

"He is silent as a stone;

And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on."

"Go to!" say the children; "up in Heaven,

Dark, wheel-like turning clouds are all we find! Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving, We look to Him-but tears have made us blind!" Do you hear children weeping and disproving, my brothers, what ye teach?

For God's possible is taught by His world's loving,
And the children doubt of each!

And well may the children weep before ye,
They are weary ere they run!

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun!

They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom,
They sink in their despair, with hope at calm,
Are slaves without liberty in Christdom,

Are martyrs by the pang without the palm!
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly
No joy of memory keep,

Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly,
Let them weep, let them weep!

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see;

For you think you see their angels in their places,
With eyes meant for Deity.

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation!

Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart? Trample down with mailèd heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants!

And your purple shows your path,"

But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath!

THE BELLS.-EDGAR A. POE.

I.

Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells-

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!

From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor
Now-now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells,
What a tale their terror tells,
Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash and roar!
What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!

Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows;

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells

Of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells

In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.

And the people-ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,

And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:

And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls,

A pæan from the bells-
And his merry bosom swells

With the pean of the bells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the pean of the bells-
Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells

Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

TITANIA, BOTTOM AND FAIRIES.-SHAKSPEARE

Enter TITANIA and her train.

Tit. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song;
Then, for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
Some, war with rear mice for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves' coats; and some keep back
The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
At our quaint spirits: Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices, and let me rest.

SONG.

1st Fai. You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen.

Newts and blind worms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen.

Chorus. Philomel with melody

Sing in our sweet lullaby,

Lulla, lulla, lullaby: lulla, lulla, lullaby;
Never harm, nor spell, nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;

So, good night, with lullaby.

2d Fai. Weaving spiders, come not here;

Hence you long-legged spinners, hence:
Beetles black, approach not near;

Worm nor snail, do no offence.

Chorus. Philomel with melody, &c.

1st Fai. Hence, away; now all is well;

One, aloof, stand sentinel.

[Exeunt FAIRIES. TITANIA sleeps.

Enter OBERON.

Ober. What thou seest when thou dost awake

[Squeezes the flower on Titania's eyelids

Do it for thy true love take;

Love and lauguish for his sake:

Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,

Pard or boar with bristled hair,

In thy eye that shall appear

When thou wak'st, it is thy dear;

Wake, when some evil thing is near.

[Exit.

Enter BOTTOM, singing; PUCK having clapt on him an ass's head.

SONG.

Bot. The ousel-cock, so black of hue,

With orange-tawny bill,

The throstle with his note so true,

The wren with little quill

Tit. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?

[Wakes.

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