A GOOD that never satisfies the mind,
A beauty fading like the April flowers,
A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
An honor that more fickle is than wind,
A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,
A treasury which bankrupt time devours,
A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind,
A vain delight our equals to command,
A style of greatness, in effect a dream,
A swelling thought of holding sea and land,
A servile lot, decked with a pompous name,
Are the strange ends we toil for here below;
Till wisest death make us our errors know.
WHAT is the existence of man's life
But open war, or slumbered strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace,
Till death's cold hand signs his release.
It is a storm where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;
And each loud passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which bears his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.
It is a flower which buds and grows
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.
It is a dream whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in the mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.
It is a dial which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of time's flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
The body in perpetual shade.
It is a weary interlude,
Which doth short joys, long woes include;
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death.
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 overhead,
The 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.
The angel wrote, and vonished. _ the wat
It came again, with a great wakering light!
And shewd the names whom love of god had blend,
And Co: Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
Here on this bless Thanksging Night, The raise to the am gratiful voico; For what than doest, Lad, is right Ance This beliving, we reyjanies.
For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glorie be.
The measure of our joyes is in this place,
The stuffe with thee.
Let me not languish, then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise
As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delaies.
All things are busie; only I
Neither bring hony with the bees,
Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie
To water these.
I am no link of thy great chain, But all my companie is a weed. Lord, place me in thy consort; give one strain To my poore reed.
THE NEW JERUSALEM.
O MOTHER dear, Jerusalem,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end, -
Thy joys when shall I see?
O happy harbor of God's saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee no sorrow can be found,
Nor grief, nor care, nor toil.
No dimly cloud o'ershadows thee,
Nor gloom, nor darksome night;
But every soul shines as the sun,
For God himself gives light.
Thy walls are made of precious stone,
Thy bulwarks diamond-square,
Thy gates are all of orient pearl, -
O God! if I were there!
O my sweet home, Jerusalem!
Thy joys when shall I see?-
The King sitting upon thy throne,
And thy felicity?
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