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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 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.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds

The bell's deep tones are swelling, 't is the knell

Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest

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Still chambers of the heart, a spectre 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 spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of Hope and Joy and Love,
And bending mournfully above the pale,
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead
flowers

O'er what has passed to nothingness.

The year

Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.

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Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave | He frothed his bumpers to the brim ; The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down

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O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and
bow

Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiads, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away
To darkle in the trackless void, yet Time,
Time the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

GEORGE DENISON PRENTICE.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR.

FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.

Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
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,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

A jollier year we shall not see.
But, though his eyes are waxing dim,
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.

Old year, you shall not die ;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.

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How hard he breathes! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
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:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

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,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE APPROACH OF AGE.

SONNET XII.

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

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TO-MORROW'S action! can that hoary wisdom,
Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow!
The fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward and the fool, condemned to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect.
Strange that this general fraud from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches, undetected!
The soldier, laboring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms
To-morrow brings the visionary bride.
But thou, too old to bear another cheat,
Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

SAMUFI JOHNSON.

GOING AND COMING. GOING the great round Sun, Dragging the captive Day Over behind the frowning hill, Over beyond the bay,

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"No light; so late! and dark and chill the

night!

O, let us in, that we may find the light!

Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now.

.

Another, more benign,

Drew out that hair of mine,

And in her own dark hair Pretended she had found That one, and twirled it round.

"Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? Fair as she was, she never was so fair.

O, let us in, though late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! Ye cannot enter now."

So sang the novice, while full passionately, Her head upon her hands, wept the sad Queen.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

OLD AGE AND DEATH.

FROM "VERSES UPON HIS DIVINE POESY,"

THE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er ; So calm are we when passions are no more. For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made:

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

EDMUND WALLER.

THE ONE GRAY HAIR.

THE wisest of the wise
Listen to pretty lies,

And love to hear them told;

Doubt not that Solomon

Listened to many a one,

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At school-boy dishes?

Some in his youth, and more when he grew old. Perish the thought! 'Tis ours to sing,

I never sat among

The choir of Wisdom's song,

But pretty lies loved I

As much as any king,

When youth was on the wing,

And (must it then be told?) when youth had

quite gone by.

Alas! and I have not
The pleasant hour forgot,

When one pert lady said, -
"O Landor! I am quite
Bewildered with affright;

I see (sit quiet now!) a white hair on your head!"

Though neither Time nor Tide can bring Belief with wishes.

TOO LATE.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

"Ah! si la jeunesse savait si la vieillesse pouvait !" THERE sat an old man on a rock,

And unceasing bewailed him of Fate, That concern where we all must take stock, Though our vote has no hearing or weight; And the old man sang him an old, old song,Never sang voice so clear and strong That it could drown the old man's long, For he sang the song "Too late! too late!"

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His hour-glass trembled while he spoke —
Neighbor," he said, "farewell! no more
Shall Death disturb your mirthful hour;
And further, to avoid all blame
Of cruelty upon my name,

To give you time for preparation,
And fit you for your future station,
Three several warnings you shall have,
Before you're summoned to the grave;
Willing for once I'll quit my prey,

And grant a kind reprieve,
In hopes you'll have no more to say,
But when I call again this way,

Well pleased the world will leave."
To these conditions both consented,
And parted perfectly contented.

What next the hero of our tale befell,
How long he lived, how wise, how well,
How roundly he pursued his course,
And smoked his pipe, and stroked his horse,

The willing muse shall tell :
He chaffered then, he bought and sold,
Nor once perceived his growing old,
Nor thought of Death as near:

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