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Forfeits no tongue rehearses,
They yield to sterner stuff;
And blind old Homer's verses
Succeed to blindman's buff:

But when young flowers are wreathing
Yon cottage pale with bloom,
And summer airs are breathing
The summer skies' perfume,
How fondly, homeward hieing,
I'll hail each long-loved spot,
That now, though mute, seems sighing,
Farewell-forget me not!

The rabbits' favourite burrow,
The deer-bedappled park;
The corn-lands' upturn'd furrow,
Sweet birth-place of the lark;
The cowslip-rooted valleys;
The pleasant brook-side grot;
The leafless chesnut alleys;
Plead all-forget me not!

A moment to the stable-
Adieu, my bonny grey;
Thou'dst speak if thou wert able—
There's good-bye in thy neigh:
And Dash his way is making

Fast from the bailiff's cot,
His whine there's no mistaking;
It says forget me not!

Then hey for bards and sages,
For tomes of classic lore:
Bee-like, I'll search their pages,
And glean a honey'd store;

"Twas study wrought their glory,
And it may be my lot

To give my name to story—
Make men-forget me not!

Adieu, mamma-adieu, too,
Sisters and brothers all; ·
Papa, good-bye to you, too,
And mind you send the ball,
The two bats, and the wicket;
If these should be forgot,
You'll sadly mar my cricket-
Good-bye-forget me not!

136.-SELF-EXAMINATION.

FROM THE GREEK OF PYTHAGORAS.

Let not soft slumbers close my eyes,
Before I've recollected thrice

The train of actions through the day:
Where have my feet mark'd out their way?
What have I learnt where'er I've been,
From all I've heard-from all I've seen?
What know I more, that's worth the knowing?
What have I done, that's worth the doing?
What have I sought, that I should shun?
What duties have I left undone :
Or into what new follies run?
These self-inquiries are the road
That lead to virtue and to God.

137.-O SPARE MY FLOWER.

O spare my flower, my gentle flower,
The slender creature of a day!

Let it bloom out its little hour,
And pass away.

Too soon its fleeting charms must lie
Decayed, unnoticed, overthrown;
O, hasten not its destiny,

So like my own.

The breeze will roam this way to-morrow,
And sigh to find its playmate gone;
The bee will come its sweets to borrow,
And meet with none.

O spare! and let it still outspread
Its beauties to the passing eye,

And look up from its lowly bed
Upon the sky.

O spare my flower!

Thou know'st not what

Thy undiscerning hand would tear; A thousand charms thou notest not Lie treasur'd there.

Not Solomon, in all his state,

Was clad like Nature's simplest child,
Nor could the world combined create
One floweret wild.

Spare, then, this humble monument
Of the Almighty's power and skill;

And let it at his shrine present
Its homage still.

He made it who makes nought in vain;
He watches it who watches thee,
And he can best its date ordain,
Who bade it be.

Lyte.

138. THE INCHCAPE ROCK, [1]

OR THE ROVER'S FATE.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was as still as she could be ;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.

The good old abbot of Aberbrothock
Had floated that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On the waves of the storm it floated and swung,
And louder and louder its warning rung.

When the rock was hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blest the priest of Aberbrothock.

[1] The Inchcape Rock is a dangerous sunken rock off the coast of Forfarshire, Scotland, on which the Bell-Rock Light-house now stands.

R

The sun in heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day:

The sea-birds screamed, as they wheel'd around,
And there was pleasure in their sound.

The float of the Inchcape bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the rover [1] walked the deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess-
But the rover's mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the bell and float,
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,

And I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothock."

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And cut the warning-bell from the float.

Down sunk the bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles arose and burst around;

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the

rock,

Will not bless the priest of Aberbrothock."

Sir Ralph the rover sailed away;

He scoured the seas for many a day;

And now, grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

[1] Rover-wanderer, pirate.

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