Page:The Carcanet.djvu/227

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To the keen, burning, harrowing pain,

Now felt through all thy breast and brain—

That spasm of terror, mute, intense,

That breathless, agoniz'd suspense,

From whose hot throb, whose deadly aching,

The heart hath no relief but breaking ! Moore.

Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed, The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead ? No, the wild bliss of nature needs alloy, And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy! And say, without our hopes, without our fears, Without the home that plighted love endears, Without the smile from partial beauty won, Oh 1 what were man ?—a world without a sun!

Campbell.

Surely there is nothing in the world short of the most undivided reciprocal attachment, that has such power over the workings of the human heart, as the mild sweetness of nature. The most ruffled temper when emerging from the town will subside into a calm at the sight of a wild stretch of landscape reposing in the twilight of a fine evening. It is then that the spirit of peace settles upon the heart, unfetters the thoughts, and elevates the soul to the Creator. It is then that we behold the parent of the universe in his works; we see his grandeur in earth, sea, And sky; we feel his affection in the emotions which they raise, and half-mortal, half-etherealized, forget where we are in the anticipation of what that world must be, o f which this lovely earth is merely the shadow.

Mrsa Porter.

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Should fate command me to the farthest ver