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Toiling-rejoicing-sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close:
Something attempted, something done,
Has earn'd a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught !
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped,
Each burning deed and thought.

"BLESSED ARE THOSE THAT MOURN."

W. C. BRYANT.

OH! deem not they are bless'd alone,
Whose lives a peaceful tenour keep;
The Power who pities man has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears,
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide, an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who o'er thy friend's low bier
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere,
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny;
Though with a pierced and broken heart,
And spurn'd of man, he goes to die.

For God has mark'd each sorrowing day,
And number'd every secret tear;
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER.*

W. C. BRYANT.

WILD was the day; the wintry sea
Moan'd sadly on New England's strand,
When first, the thoughtful and the free,
Our fathers trod the desert land.

They little thought how pure a light

With years should gather round that day; How love should keep their memories bright, How wide a realm their sons should sway.

Green are their bays, but greener still

Shall round their spreading fame be wreath'd, And regions, now untrod, shall thrill

With reverence when their names are breath'd.

Till where the sun, with softer fires,
Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep

The children of the pilgrim sires

This hallow'd day like us shall keep.

The day the Pilgrim Fathers first landed in America.

THE CHIMES OF ENGLAND.

ARTHUR C. COXE.

Taken from an American publication, "The Christian World.”

THE chimes, the chimes of motherland,
Of England, green and old,
That out from fane and ivied tower,
A thousand years have toll'd;
How glorious must their music be,
As breaks the hallow'd day,
And calleth with a seraph's voice,
A nation up to pray.

Those chimes that tell a thousand tales,

Sweet tales of olden time!

And ring a thousand memories

At vesper and at prime,

At bridal and at burial,

For cottager and king

Those chimes, those glorious Christian chimes,

How blessedly they ring!

Those chimes, those chimes of motherland,
Upon a Christian morn,
Outbreaking as the angels did,

For a Redeemer horn!
How merrily they call afar,

To cot and baron's hall,
With holly deck'd and mistletoe,
To keep the festival.

The chimes of England, how they peal
From tower and Gothic pile,
Where hymn and swelling anthem fill
The dim cathedral aisle ;
Where windows bathe the holy light,
On priestly heads that falls,
And stain the florid tracery,
And banner-dighted walls.

Η

And then those Easter bells in spring,
Those glorious Easter chimes,
How loyally they hail thee round,
Old queen of holy times!
From hill to hill like sentinels,
Responsively they cry,

And sing the rising of the Lord,
From vale to mountain high.

I love ye, chimes of motherland,
With all this soul of mine,
And bless the Lord that I am sprung
Of good old English line;
And like a son I sing thy lay,
That England's glory tells;
For she is lovely to the Lord,
For you, ye Christian bells.

And heir of her ancestral fame,
And happy in my birth,

Thee, too, I love, my forest land,

The joy of all the earth;

For thine thy mother's voice shall be,

And here, where God is King,

With English chimes, from Christian spires,
The wilderness shall ring.

THE POPLAR FIELD.

COWPER.

THE poplars are fell'd, farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade :
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew;
And now in the grass behold they are laid,

And the tree is my scat that once lent me a shade.

The blackbird has fled to another retreat,

Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene, where his melody charm'd me before,
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,

With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.

SWIMMING.

THOMSON.

CHEER'D by the milder beam, the sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth
A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands
Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound below;
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses and his rosy check

Instant emerge; and through the obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repelled,
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour leads, an easy winding path;
While from his polished sides a dewy light
Effuses on the pleased spectators round.
This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer heats;
Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood,
Would I, weak-shivering, linger on the brink.
Thus life redoubles; and is oft preserved,
By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse

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