The triumphs and defeats of boys,

Are but repeated in our age;

I'd say your woes were not less keen,

Your hopes more vain, than those of men,

Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen

At forty-five played o'er again.

I'd say we suffer and we strive
Not less nor more as men than boys,
With grizzled beards at forty-five,

As erst at twelve in corduroys;
And if, in time of sacred youth,

We learned at home to love and pray, Pray Heaven that early love and truth May never wholly pass away.

And in the world, as in the school,

I'd say how fate may change and shift, -
The prize be sometimes with the fool,
The race not always to the swift;

The strong may yield, the good may fall,
The great man be a vulgar clown,
The knave be lifted over all,

The kind cast pitilessly down.

Who knows the inscrutable design?
Blessed be He who took and gave!
Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,
Be weeping at her darling's grave ?
We bow to Heaven that willed it so,
That darkly rules the fate of all,

That sends the respite or the blow,
That's free to give or to recall.

This crowns his feast with wine and wit,
Who brought him to that mirth and state?
His betters, see, below him sit,

Or hunger hopeless at the gate.
Who bade the mud from Dives' wheel
To spurn the rags of Lazarus ?
Come, brother, in that dust we 'll kneel,
Confessing Heaven that ruled it thus.

So each shall mourn, in life's advance,
Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed, -
Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance,
And longing passion unfulfilled.

Amen! - whatever fate be sent,

Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Although the head with cares be bent, And whitened with the winter snow.

Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
Let young and old accept their part,
And bow before the awful will,

And bear it with an honest heart.

Who misses, or who wins the prize,
Go, lose or conquer as you can;
But if you fail, or if you rise,

Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

A gentleman, or old or young!

(Bear kindly with my humble lays ;)

The sacred chorus first was sung

Upon the first of Christmas days; The shepherds heard it overhead,

The joyful angels raised it then: Glory to Heaven on high, it said,

And peace on earth to gentle men!

My song, save this, is little worth;
I lay the weary pen aside,

And wish you health and love and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas-tide.

As fits the holy Christmas birth,

Be this, good friends, our carol still, Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, To men of gentle will.

HE curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where, through the long-drawn isle and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

VOL. XIV.

5

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