To drag you patient through the tedious length DR. EDWARD YOUNG. | 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 defence, Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. SHAKESPEARE. NEW YEAR'S EVE. RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, Ring out the old, ring in the new; Ring out a slowly dying cause, Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 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. WHEN I DO COUNT THE CLOCK. SONNET. WHEN I do count the clock that tells the time, I asked the ancient, venerable dead, Of life had left his veins: "Time!" he replied; I asked the Seasons, in their annual round, "Tis Folly's blank, and Wisdom's highest prize!" I asked a spirit lost, - but O the shriek THE JESTER'S SERMON. That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak. THE Jester shook his hood and bells, and leaped It cried, "A particle! a speck! a mite Consulted, and it made me this reply, - I asked old Father Time himself at last; “Mortal!” he cried, "the mystery now is o'er; Time was, Time is, but Time shall be no more!" MARSDEN, JAQUES. "Good morrow, fool," quoth I. "No, sir," quoth he, upon a chair, The pages laughed, the women screamed, and tossed their scented hair; The falcon whistled, staghounds bayed, the lapdog barked without, The scullion dropped the pitcher brown, the cook railed at the lout! The steward, counting out his gold, let pouch and money fall, And why? because the Jester rose to say grace in But still the Jester shut his eyes and rolled his witty head; And when they grew a little still, read half a yard of text, And, waving hand, struck on the desk, then frowned like one perplexed. "Dear sinners all," the fool began, "man's life is but a jest, "Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me for- A dream, a shadow, bubble, air, a vapor at the best, tune." And then he drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock: In a thousand pounds of law I find not a single ounce of love; A blind man killed the parson's cow in shooting at the dove; Thus may we see," quoth he, "how the world wags: The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he 'T is but an hour ago since it was nine; And after one hour more 't will be eleven ; That fools should be so deep contemplative; is well; The wooer who can flatter most will bear away the belle. "Let no man halloo he is safe till he is through the wood; He who will not when he may, must tarry when he should. He who laughs at crooked men should need walk | He frothed his bumpers to the brim O, he who once has won a name may lie abed But though his eyes are waxing dim, an ass's ears, ape's face, hog's mouth, and ostrich legs. He does not care a pin for thieves who limps about and begs. Be always first man at a feast and last man at a fray; The short way round, in spite of all, is still the longest way. ; Old year, you shall not die ; He was full of joke and jest, To see him die across the waste His son and heir doth ride post-haste, But he'll be dead before. Every one for h's own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, How hard he breathes! over the snow When the hungry curate licks the knife, there's I heard just now the crowing cock. not much for the clerk; When the pilot, turning pale and sick, looks up The cricket chirps: the light burns low: the brimming can; 'Tis nearly twelve o'clock. Shake hands before you die. And then again the women screamed, and every His face is growing sharp and thin. staghound bayed, And why? because the motley fool so wise a sermon made. G. W. THORNBURY. THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, ye the church-bell sad and slow, Old year, you must not die ; He lieth still he doth not move : Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, Alack our friend is gone, Close up his eyes: tie up his chin : That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There's a new foot on the floor, my friend, ALFRED TENNYSON. THE DOORSTEP. THE Conference-meeting through at last, Not braver he that leaps the wall By level musket-flashes litten, Than I, who stepped before them all, Who longed to see me get the mitten. But no; she blushed, and took my arm! We let the old folks have the highway, And started toward the Maple Farm Along a kind of lover's by-way. I can't remember what we said, 'T was nothing worth a song or story; Yet that rude path by which we sped Seemed all transformed and in a glory. The snow was crisp beneath our feet, The moon was full, the fields were gleaming; By hood and tippet sheltered sweet, It is her thirtieth birthday! With a sign And her heart taken up the last sweet tie That measured out its links of golden hours! Her face with youth and health was beaming. Yet her full heart its own interpreter — The little hand outside her muff O sculptor, if you could but mould it !- So lightly touched my jacket-cuff, To keep it warm I had to hold it. To have her with me there alone, 'T was love and fear and triumph blended. At last we reached the foot-worn stone Where that delicious journey ended. The old folks, too, were almost home; Yet on the doorstep still we lingered. She shook her ringlets from her hood, But yet I knew she understood With what a daring wish I trembled. A cloud passed kindly overhead, The moon was slyly peeping through it, Yet hid its face, as if it said, "Come, now or never! do it! do it!" My lips till then had only known The kiss of mother and of sister, But somehow, full upon her own Perhaps 't was boyish love, yet still, EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. THE OLD MAID. WHY sits she thus in solitude? Her heart As if to let its heavy throbbings through; Translates itself in silence on her cheek. Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers, On pleasures past, though nevermore to be; AMELIA B. WELBY. THE PETRIFED FERN. IN a valley, centuries ago, Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender, Monster fishes swam the silent main, Stately forests waved their giant branches, Earth one time put on a frolic mood, Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty mo tion Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean; O the long, long centuries since that day! Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man I |