TIME. FROM "NIGHT THOUGHTS." But from its loss. THE bell strikes one: we take no note of time, To give it, then, a tongue, Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours: Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. It is the signal that demands despatch; How much is to be done! my hopes and fears Start up alarmed, and o'er life's narrow verge Look down on what? a fathomless abyss; A dread eternity; how surely mine! And can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? Time the supreme! - Time is eternity; Ah! how unjust to Nature and himself, ful made: O, what a riddle of absurdity! Ye well arrayed! ye lilies of our land! Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin, TO-MORROW. FROM "IRENE." EDWARD YOUNG. TO-MORROW'S action! can that hoary wisdom, CHRISTMAS HYMN. FROM THE ODE "ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY." No war or battle's sound Was heard the world around: The idle spear and shield were high uphung; The hooked chariot stood Unstained with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. But peaceful was the night, His reign of peace upon the earth began : Whispering new joys to the mild oceàn, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave. The stars, with deep amaze, Stand fixed in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their precious influence; And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer, that often warned them thence; And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame Ring out, ye crystal spheres, If ye have power to touch our senses so; The new-enlightened world no more should And let your silver chime need ; He saw a greater Sun appear Move in melodious time; And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow; Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could And, with your ninefold harmony, bear. The shepherds on the lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they then That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook, Divinely warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took : Nature, that heard such sound, Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat, the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling ; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all heaven and earth in happier union. Make up full concert to the angelic symphony. NEW YEAR'S EVE. RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, Ring out the old, ring in the new ; Ring, happy bells, across the snow; Ring out the grief that saps the mind, Ring out a slowly dying cause MILTON. Ring out false pride in place and blood, To rest upon his mountain crag, but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind In mournful cadences that come abroad 'T is a time For memory and for tears. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, Whose tones are like the wizard's voice of Time Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions that have passed away, And left no shadow of their loveliness On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise, Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, Old year, you must not die; He lieth still he doth not move: He hath no other life above. He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, And the New-year will take 'em away. Old year,' you must not go; So long as you have been with us, He frothed his bumpers to the brim ; Old year, you shall not die ; We did so laugh and cry with you, He was full of joke and jest, But all his merry quips are o'er. To see him die, across the waste His son and heir doth ride post-haste, But he 'll be dead before. Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, How hard he breathes! over the snow The shadows flicker to and fro : The cricket chirps: the light burns low : 'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. Shake hands before you die. Old year, we'll dearly rue for you : His face is growing sharp and thin. Alack! our friend is gone. Close up his eyes tie up his chin: Step from the corpse, and let him in That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, ALFRED TENNYSON. WHEN I DO COUNT THE CLOCK. WHEN I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silvered o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard; Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake, And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense, Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. |