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Beauty is beauty, though unseen;
And those who live it all their days,
Find meet reward in their soul serene,
And the inner voice of prayer and praise.

VI.

Like thee, fair streamlet, undefiled,
Many a human virtue dwells,

Unknown of men in the distant dells,
Or hides in the coverts of the wild.
Many a mind of richest worth,
Whether of high or of low estate,
Illumes the by-ways of the earth,
Unseen, but good; unknown, but great.
Many a happy and lovely soul
Lives beauty in the fields afar,
Or, 'mid the city's human shoal,
Shines like a solitary star.

CHARLES MACKAY,

Know ye the Fair One.

KNOW ye the fair one whom I love?
High is her white and holy brow;
Her looks so saintly, sweet, and pure,
Make men adore who come to woo;
Her neck, o'er which her tresses hing,
Is snow beneath a raven's wing.

Her lips are like the red-rose bud,
Dew-parted in a morn of June;
Her voice is gentler than the sound
Of some far heard and heavenly tune;
Her little finger, white and round,
Can make a hundred hearts to bound.

My love's two eyes are bonnie stars,
Born to adorn the summer skies;
And I will by our tryste-thorn sit,

To watch them at their evening rise:
That when they shine on tower and tree,
Their heavenly light may fall on me.

Come, starry Eve, demure and gray,
Now is the hour when maidens woo,
Come shake o'er wood, and bank, and brae
Thy tresses moist with balmy dew:
Thy dew ne'er dropt on flower or tree,
So lovely or so sweet as she.

The laverock's bosom shone with dew,
Beside us on the lilied lea;

She sung her mate down from the cloud
To warble by my love and me;
Nor from her young ones sought to move,
For well she saw our looks were love.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

The Character of a Happy Life.

How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will!
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death;
Untied unto the world by care

Of public fame or private breath.

Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice hath ever understood;
How deepest wounds are given by praise,
Nor rules of state, but rules of good.

Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat:
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great.

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than gifts to lend:
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book, or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands,
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

Forgiveness.

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong:
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,

One summer Sabbath-day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level-and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrong-doer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,

Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,

Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

WHITTIER.

Song-To Celia.

DRINK to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sentst it back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

BEN JONSON.

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