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POETIC APHORISMS,

CREEDS.

Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds and doctrines three
Extant are; but still the doubt is, where Christianity may be.

THE RESTLESS HEART.

A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round;

If they have nothing else to grind, they must themselves be ground.

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and comfort it bespoke ;
But, alas! it now is quenched, and only bites us, like the smoke.

ART AND TACT.

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

RETRIBUTION.

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

TRUTH.

When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle but a torch's fire,
Ha! how soon they all are silent! Thus Truth silences the liar.

RHYMES.

If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound not well in strangers' cars, They have only to bethink them that it happens so with theirs ;

For so long as words, like mortals, call a fatherland their own,

They will be most highly valued where they are best and longest known.

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CURFEW.

Dark grow the windows,

And quenched is the fire; Sound fades into silence,All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,

No sound in the hall ! Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all!

II.

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies,

Forgotten they lie;

Like coals in the ashes,

They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,

The story is told,

The windows are darkened,

The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall;

Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

EVANGELINE,

A TALE OF ACADI E.

1847.

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