BEYOND the vague Atlantic deep, As on its greenest native sward, And through the maze of civic life, 1 AUSTIN DOBSON, born in 1840, is an English poet, who has acquired reputation as the author of several volumes of graceful verses. In Letters, Commerce, even in Strife, LORD HOUGHTON.1 THE END OF THE PLAY. THE play is done; the curtain drops, And looks around, to say farewell. And, when he's laughed and said his say, One word, ere yet the evening ends, Good-night! I'd say, the griefs, the joys, 1 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, an English statesman and writer, was born in Yorkshire in 1809, and graduated at Cambridge University in 1831. He was elected to Parliament in 1837 for Pontefract, which he continued to represent until 1863, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Houghton. He died in 1885. 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 strong may yield, the good may fall, The knave be lifted over all, The kind cast pitilessly down. Who knows the inscrutable design? 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 of Lazarus? To spurn the rags So each shall mourn, in life's advance, Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Come wealth or want, come good or ill, And bear it with an honest heart, A gentleman, or old or young! (Bear kindly with my humble lays); My song, save this, is little worth; 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, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH. SAY not the struggle nought availeth, If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. |