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256

ASSOCIATIONS.

Then, just above that long dark copse,
One warm red star comes out, and passes
Westward, and mounts, and mounts, and stops
(Or seems to) o'er the turret-tops,

And lights those lonely casement-glasses.

Sir Ralph still wears that old grim smile.
The staircase creaks as up I clamber
To those still rooms, to muse awhile.
I see the little meadow-stile

As I lean from the great south-chamber.

And Lady Ruth is just as white.

(Ah, still the face seems strangely like her!)
The lady and the wicked knight—
All just the same-she swoon'd for fright-
And he-his arm still raised to strike her.

Her boudoir-no one enters there:

The very flowers which last she gather'd
Are in the vase; the lute-the chair-
And all things-just as then they were!
Except the jasmines-those are wither'd.

But when along the corridors

The last red pause of day is streaming,
I seem to hear her up the floors:
I seem to see her thro' the doors:
And then I know that I am dreaming.

Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton.)

THE RUINED PALACE.

257

THE RUINED PALACE.

BROKEN are the Palace windows:
Rotting is the Palace floor.

The damp wind lifts the arras,

And swings the creaking door;

But it only startles the white owl

From his perch on a monarch's throne,
And the rat that was gnawing the harp-strings
A Queen once play'd upon.

Dare you linger here at midnight
Alone, when the wind is about,

And the bat, and the newt, and the viper,
And the creeping things come out?

Beware of those ghostly chambers!

Search not what my heart hath been,

Lest you find a phantom sitting

Where once there sat a Queen.

Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton.)

Modern Poets.

17

258

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I REMEMBER, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set

The laburnum on his birth-day,-
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh

To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then,

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow!

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THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS.

I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from Heav'n

Than when I was a boy.

T. Hood.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS.

OFT in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm'd and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so link'd together

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,

I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!

259

260

THE RECOLLECTION.

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

T. Moore.

THE RECOLLECTION.

Now the last day of many days
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up, do thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,

For now the Earth has changed its face.
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

We wander'd to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam;
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of Heaven lay;

It seem'd as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies

Which scatter'd from above the sun
A light of Paradise!

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,―

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