Seek thy salve while sore is green,

Fester'd wounds ask deeper lancing;
After-cures are seldom seen,

Often sought, scarce ever chancing:
Time and place give best advice,

Out of season, out of price.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL, 1560-1595.

NEVER DESPAIR.

NEVER despair! when the dark cloud is lowering, The sun, though obscured, never ceases to shine; Above the black tempest his radiance is pouring, While faithless and faint-hearted mortals repine. The journey of life has its lights and its shadows,

And Heaven in its wisdom to teach sends a share ; Though rough be the road, yet with reason to guide us, And courage to conquer, we'll never despair!

Never despair! when with troubles contending,

Make labour and patience a sword and a shield, And win brighter laurels, with courage unbending, Than ever were gain'd on the blood-tainted field. As gay as the lark in the beam of the morning, When young hearts spring forward to do and to dare, The bright star of promise their future adorning, Will light them along, and they'll never despair!

The oak in the tempest grows strong by resistance,
The arm at the anvil gains muscular power,
And firm self-reliance, that seeks no assistance,
Goes onward, rejoicing, through sunshine and shower;
For life is a struggle, to try and to prove us,

And true hearts grow stronger by labour and care, While Hope, like a seraph, still whispers above us,Look upward and onward, and never despair!

ALEXANDER SMART, 1798

HOPE.

AT summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus, from afar, each din-discover'd scene

More pleasing seems than all the past hath been,
And every form that fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.

What potent spirit guides the raptured eye

To pierce the shades of dim futurity?

Can wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of joy's anticipated hour?

Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man-
Her dim horizon pointed to a span ;
Or, if she hold an image to the view,
'Tis nature pictured too severely true.

With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To pleasure's path or glory's bright career.

-Pleasures of Hope.

THOMAS CAMPBELL, 1777-1844.

CONTENTMENT.

IN vain do men

The heaven of their fortune's fault accuse;

Sith they know best what is the best for them:
For they to each such fortune do diffuse
As they do know each can most aptly use.
For not that which men covet most is best;
Nor that thing worst which men do most refuse;

N

But fittest is, that all contented rest

With that they hold; each hath his fortune in his breast.

It is the mind that maketh good or ill,
That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor;
For some, that hath abundance at his will,
Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store
And other, that hath little, asks no more,
But in that little is both rich and wise;
For wisdom is most riches: fools therefore
They are, which fortunes do by vows devise ;
Sith each unto himself his life may fortunise.

EDWARD SPENSER, 1553-1599.

THE OLD MAN'S FUNERAL.

I SAW an aged man upon his bier ;

His hair was thin and white, and on his brow A record of the cares of many a year—

Cares that were ended and forgotten now. And there was sadness round, and faces bow'd, And women's tears fell fast, and children wail'd aloud.

Then rose another hoary man, and said,

In faltering accents, to that weeping train :Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead? Ye are not sad to see the gather'd grain,

Nor when their mellow fruit the orchards cast,
Nor when the yellow woods shake down the ripen'd

mast.

Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfill'd-
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky—
In the soft evening, when the winds are still'd,
Sinks where his islands of refreshment lie,
And leaves the smile of his departure spread
O'er the warm-colour'd heaven and ruddy mountain-
head.

Why weep ye then for him, who, having won
The bound of man's appointed years, at last,

Life's blessings all enjoy'd, life's labours done,
Serenely to his final rest has pass'd;

While the soft memory of his virtues yet
Linger, like twilight hues when the bright sun is set ?

His youth was innocence; his riper age

Mark'd with some act of goodness every day; And watch'd by eyes that loved him, calm and sage, Faded his late declining years away.

Cheerful he gave his being up, and went
To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.

That life was happy: every day he gave
Thanks for the fair existence that was his;
For a sick fancy made him not her slave,
To mock him with her phantom miseries.