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been celebrated by the poetic thought of all ages, and the author will therefore hardly hope to offer much that is new in the following verses. His only excuse for so worn a theme is, that the world still loves the picture, and that each generation can, at best, but reset the old jewels of the past.

CONTENTS.

Across the Sea,

The Seven Sleepers,

A Legend of St. John,

The Blessed Vale.

ACROSS THE SEA.

Inscribed to

David Swing.

ACROSS THE SEA.

I.--CHILDHOOD.

Ah! who can speak that country whence I fled?
None but a lover may its beauty know,
None but a poet can its rapture sing;
And e'en his muse, upborne on Fancy's wing,
Will grieve o'er beauties still unnoticed,
O'er raptures language is too poor to show.

Fore'er remains the land where children dwell,
Earth's fairest mem'ry and its Palestine;
Tho' years have passed since on my forehead there
Were graven lines of weariness and care,
Still on the silver string of memory oft I tell
The golden beads of joy that once were mine.

Dear distant Land of Childhood! God doth know
That I have longed to dwell in thee again,
As when by care unvexed, by doubt undriven,
With eyes as blue, and heart as pure, as Heaven.
Sweet are the days of childhood, glad the flow
Of unhurt joyous life in every vein.

It may not be, those sunny hours are flown,
And loud "The Fortune" knocks at every gate;
Still move we on the path where none returns,
Where wait afar, or near, our funeral urns,
That mystic path, whose ways are all unknown,
For only life's surprises make us great.

Yet still I dream, as o'er the swelling deep,
I gaze upon the far enchanted shore,
Through whose retreats the memory-brooding sea
Rolls in deep monotone continually.
Waves of soft melody, which fall asleep
In rosy glens that I may see no more.

O hol

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Across the Sea and Other Poems, page 1
by Thomas S. Chard

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