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But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning timepiece never ceased, · "Forever never!

Never forever!"

There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,

And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient timepiece told,

"Forever - never!

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From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding night;

There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;

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And in the hush that followed the prayer,

Was heard the old clock on the stair,

"Forever never!

Never-forever!"

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All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
As in the days long-since gone by,

The ancient timepiece makes reply, —
"Forever - never!

Never-forever!"

Never here, forever there,

Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,—
Forever there, but never here !

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THE ARROW AND THE SONG.

I SHOT an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where ;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where ; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

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