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It is man's saying-man's! Too weak to move
One sphered star above,

Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love

With his No More, and Once.

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Blasphemers? Is your earth not cold enow,
Mourners, without that snow?

Ah, friends! and would ye wrong each other so?
And could ye say of some, whose love is known,
Whose prayers have met your own,

Whose tears have fallen for you, whose smiles have shone, 66 We loved them ONCE?"

Such words,

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Lay calm of me, sweet friends, when out of sight?

When hearts of better right

Stand in between me and your happy light?

And when, as flowers kept too long in the shade,
Ye find my colours fade,

And all that is not love in me, decayed?

Such words - Ye loved me ONCE!

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Could ye, We loved her once,"

Say cold of me, when further put away
In earth's sepulchral clay?

When mute the lips which deprecate to-day? -
Not so not then-least then! when Life is shriven
And death's full joy is given,—

Of those who sit and love you up in Heaven,
Say not, "We loved them once."

Say never, ye loved ONCE!

God is too near above, the grave below,

And all our moments go

Too quickly past our souls, for saying so:
The mysteries of Life and Death avenge
Affections light of range-

There comes no change to justify that change,
Whatever comes-loved ONCE!

And yet that word of ONCE

Is humanly acceptive! Kings have said,

Shaking a discrowned head,

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"We ruled once,"—idiot tongues, "We once bested,".

Cripples once danced i' the vines and bards approved
Were once by scornings, moved!

But love strikes one hour - LOVE. Those never loved,
Who dream that they loved ONCE.

STANZAS.

From "In Memoriam."--Ternyson.

The love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.

No doubt, vast eddies in the flood

Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;

Yet, oh ye ministers of good,

Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do

With old results that look like new,

If this were all your mission here,

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword,
To fool the crowd with glorious lies,
To cleave a creed in sects and cries,
To change the bearing of a word,

To shift an arbitrary power,

To cramp the student at his desk, To make old baseness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower;

Why then my scorn might well descend

On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil coöperant to an end.

DIES IRE.

[Translated by General Dix.]

Thomas de Celano.

THAT DAY, A DAY OF WRATH, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers! — ZEPHANIAH i. 15, 16.

Day of vengeance, without morrow!
Earth shall end in flame and sorrow,
As from Saint and Seer we borrow.

Ah! what terror is impending,
When the Judge is seen descending,
And each secret veil is rending.

To the throne, the trumpet sounding,
Through the sepulchres resounding,
Summons all, with voice astounding.

Death and Nature, mazed, are quaking,
When, the grave's long slumber breaking,
Man to judgment is awaking.

On the written Volume's pages,
Life is shown in all its stages-
Judgment-record of past ages!

Sits the Judge, the raised arraigning,

Darkest mysteries explaining,

Nothing unavenged remaining,

What shall I then say, unfriended,

By no advocate attended,

When the just are scarce defended?

King of majesty tremendous,
By Thy saving grace defend us,
Fount of pity, safety send us!

Holy Jesus, meek, forbearing,
For my sins the death-crown wearing,
Save me, in that day, despairing.

Worn and weary, Thou hast sought me;
By Thy cross and passion bought me
Spare the hope Thy labors brought me.

Righteous Judge of retribution,
Give, O give me absolution
Ere the day of dissolution.

As a guilty culprit groaning,
Flushed my face, my errors owning,
Hear, O God, my spirit's moaning!
Thou to Mary gav'st remission,
Heard'st the dying thief's petition,
Bad'st me hope in my contrition.

In my prayers no grace discerning,
Yet on me Thy favor turning,
Save my soul from endless burning.

Give me, when Thy sheep confiding
Thou art from the goats dividing,
On Thy right a place abiding!

When the wicked are confounded,
And by bitter flames surrounded,
Be my joyful pardon sounded!

Prostrate, all my guilt discerning,
Heart as though to ashes turning;
Save, O save me from the burning!
Day of weeping, when from ashes
Man shall rise mid lightning flashes,
Guilty, trembling with contrition,
Save him, Father, from perdition!

EXTRACT FROM "DE PROFUNDIS."

He reigns above, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and leave His throne:
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all,—
Ancient of Days, whose days go on.

Mrs. Browsing.

He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love foregone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the Jealous God. Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?

By anguish which made pale the sun,

I hear Him charge His saints that none
Among His creatures anywhere

Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.

Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!

No mortal grief deserves that crown.

O supreme Love, chief Misery,

The sharp regalia are for THEE
Whose days eternally go on!

For us,-
whatever 's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done.
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.

Whatever's lost, it first was won:
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here,

That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.

I praise Thee while my days go on.

I praise Thee while my days go on;

I love Thee while my days go on :

Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.

And having in Thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling-so I. THY DAYS GO ON.

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When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

I am nearing the place,

Robert Browning.

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe;

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