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JULY

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe

The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;

My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,

And bent before me the pale harvests stand.

The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,

And there is thirst and fever in the air;

The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;

I am the Emperor whose name I bear.