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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 TENNYSON.

OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE
PROUD?

OH! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scatter'd around and together be laid;

And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant and mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blest-
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne ;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn ;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climb'd with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorn'd, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joy'd, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, ay! they died; we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Shall follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroudOh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

THE OCEAN-AN IMAGE OF ETERNITY.
(From Childe Harold.)

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him shivering in thy playful spray

Howling in agony, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth-there let him lay.

The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,

And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war :

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires changed in all save thee: Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thouUnchangeable, save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. LORD BYRON.

MARY IN HEAVEN.

THOU lingering star! with lessening ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,

Again thou usher'st in the day

My Mary from my soul was torn.

F

O Mary dear departed shade!

Where is thy blissful place of rest?

See'st thou thy lover lowly laid?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

That sacred hour can I forget

Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface

Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace

Ah, little thought we 'twas our last!

Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore,

O'erhung with wild woods, thickening, green;
The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar,
Twined amorous round the raptured scene.

The flowers sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray,
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.

Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.

My Mary dear departed shade !

Where is thy blissful place of rest? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ?

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

ROBERT BURNS.

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