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For Memorizing

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind!

Ring out the slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws!

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out, my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller Minstrel in!

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of Good!

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrow lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace!

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land-
Ring in the Christ that is to be!

-Alfred Tennyson.

For Memorizing

Soldier, rest!

SOLDIER, REST!

Thy warfare o'er,

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;

Dream of battled fields no more,

Days of danger, nights of waking.

In our isle's enchanted hall,

Hands unseen thy couch are strewing;

Fairy strains of music fall,

Every sense in slumber dewing.

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Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.

No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armor's clang, or war-steed champing;
Trump nor pibroch summon here

Mustering clan, or squadron tramping.

Yet the lark's shrill fife may come,
At the daybreak, from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.

Ruder sounds shall none be near;

Guards nor warders challenge here;

Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.

-Sir Walter Scott.

For Memorizing

Like a glow-worm golden,

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its ærial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view;

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflower'd,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous, and fresh and clear, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphant chant,

Match'd with thine, would be all

But an empty vaunt,

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

For Memorizing

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silvery sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;

For Memorizing

TO A SKYLARK.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit

Bird thou never wert

That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire:

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the setting sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

Thou dost float and run;

Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

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