Dissolute man!

Lave in it, drink of it,

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care!
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs, frigidly,
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, kindly,
Smooth and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,-
Staring so blindly!
Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.
Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,
Into her rest!

Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,
Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins, to her Saviour !

THOMAS HOOD.

BEAUTIFUL SNOW.

O THE Snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and the earth below!
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,

Skimming along.
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong.
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek;
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak.
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel and fickle as love!

O the snow, the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go!
Whirling about in its maddening fun,

It plays in its glee with every one.

Chasing,
Laughing,
Hurrying by,

God, and myself I have lost by my fall.
The veriest wretch that goes shivering by
Will take a wide sweep, lest I wander too nigh;
For of all that is on or about me, I know
There is nothing that's pure but the beautiful snow.

How strange it should be that this beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!
How strange it would be, when the night comes
again,

If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain!
Fainting,
Freezing,
Dying alone,

Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town,
Gone mad in its joy at the snow's coming down;
To lie and to die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!
JAMES W. WATSON.

Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man ; To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can: Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!

What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din !

The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they

spin!

How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled!

The pauper at length makes a noise in the world! Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last ;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast:
Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!

You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed,

Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid! And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low,

You've a chance to the grave like a gemman to go! Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns !

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend!
Bear soft his bones over the stones!

Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet

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.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

THE DIRGE.

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;

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.