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.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

THE NEW YEAR.

66

FROM IN MEMORIAM," CV.

RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night-
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land-
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

LIFE.

IT is not life upon thy gifts to live,

But to grow fixed with deeper roots in Thee;
And when the sun and showers their bounties give,
To send out thick-leaved limbs; a fruitful tree
Whose green head meets the eye for many a mile,
Whose spreading boughs a friendly shelter rear,
And full-faced fruits their blushing welcome smile
As to its goodly shade our feet draw near.
Who tastes its gifts shall never hunger more,
For 't is the Father spreads the pure repast,
Who, while we eat, renews the ready store,
Which at his bounteous board must ever last;
And, as the more we to his children lend,
The more to us doth of his bounty send.

JONES VERY.

SELECTIONS

FROM PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

THE POET'S THEME.

Or man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of Chaos; or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples the upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,