It is an irksome word and task;

And, when he's laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that's anything but gay.

One word, ere yet the evening ends,
Let's close it with a parting rhyme;
And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As fits the merry Christmas time;
On life's wide scene you too have parts
That Fate ere long shall bid you play;
Good night! with honest, gentle hearts
A kindly greeting go alway!

Good-night! I'd say the griefs, the joys,
Just hinted in this mimic page,
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 bowed 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 overheadThe 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.

RING OUT, WILD BELLS

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 (In Memoriam).

THE LAST WORD

CREEP into thy narrow bed;
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset ! all stands fast ;
Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese.
Let them have it how they will!

Thou art tired; best be still.

They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee?

Better men fared thus before thee;

Fired their ringing shot and pass'd,

Hotly charged — and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,

Find thy body by the wall!

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne :
Yet did I never breathe its
pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific - and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

THANATOPSIS

JOHN KEATS.

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;
Go forth, under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air
Comes a still voice.

Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world with kings,
The powerful of the earth - the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;
The venerable woods - rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks

That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-

Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.- Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings - yet the dead are there :
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep - the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,

The youth in life's fresh spring, and he who goes