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THE STAKE. 
PART III. 
“ Then back to their own land.”—Lady Jane in the Tower. 
Enovucu: wy path is trodden, and the shore, 
The final shore of this dim weary world, 
Lies at my feet ; its tangled ways no more 
Detain my lingering footsteps. I have done: 
Father, take home thy child! If yet thy sun, 
Which shineth on the evil and the good, 
On the loud throng and the still solitude, 
Of my appointed task see none remain, 
I would my spirit should return again 
To him who gave it, in his sight to rest ; 
And my fallen tent, its thin-worn canvass furl’d, 
Be laid away in dust. 
This tranquil breast, 
Though in its pulses still the throb of life 
Beat leisurely, hath long forgot the strife, 
The aching turmoil, that doth ever hang 
On human hopes and dreamings ; and the clang 
Of jarring music, making discord fell, 
Rings through its depths no longer. If on earth 
I can no longer serve thee, let the knell, 
The solemn-breathing curfew, murmur peace 
To my strewn ashes, and the desolate hearth 
Of my decayéd halls know never more 
The haunting of my presence. 
All is o’er, 
All past, all vanish’d, that might yet have won 
A half wish from me that life’s evening sun 
Should set in their grey shadow. I have done, 
Done with the things of this world ; and this head, 
Bleach’d long before its time, and these dim eyes, 
Tired with looking on life’s miseries, 
Come gladly to lie down among the dead. 
But, oh! Lord Bishop, for thy sake I speak, 
Whose blind displeasure may its vengeance wreak 
On this earth-framéd tenement, ordain’d 
