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Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice,
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee, though I die.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

High toward the heavens, as though to meet his star, Exclaimed, "This, too, I owe to thee, Jaffar!"

LEIGH HUNT.

Jaffar.

JAFFAR, the Barmecide, the good vizier,
The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer,
Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust;
And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust
Of what the good, and e'en the bad might say,
Ordained that no man living from that day
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death.
All Araby and Persia held their breath;

All but the brave Mondeer: he, proud to show
How far for love a grateful soul could go,
And facing death for very scorn and grief
(For his great heart wanted a great relief),
Stood forth in Bagdad daily, in the square
Where once had stood a happy house, and there
Harangued the tremblers at the scymitar
On all they owed to the divine Jaffar.

"Bring me this man," the caliph cried; the man Was brought, was gazed upon. The mutes began To bind his arms. "Welcome, brave cords," cried he.

"From bonds far worse Jaffar delivered me;
From wants, from shames, from loveless household
fears;

Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears;
Restored me, loved me, put me on a par
With his great self. How can I pay Jaffar?”

Haroun, who felt that on a soul like this
The mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss,
Now deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate
Might smile upon another half as great.
He said: "Let worth grow frenzied if it will;
The caliph's judgment shall be master still.
Go, and since gifts so move thee, take this gem,
The richest in the Tartar's diadem,

And hold the giver as thou deemest fit!"
"Gifts!" cried the friend; he took, and hold-
ing it

The Fire of Drift-Wood.

WE sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The light-house, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been,

And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,

That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire Built of the wreck of stranded ships,

The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed,
And sent no answer back again.

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