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TO SORROW.

The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow;
She draws her favors to the lowest ebb;

Her tides have equal times to come and go;
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web;
No joy so great but runneth to an end,
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring;
Not endless night, nor yet eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing;
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none, are crossed;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, have some; who most, have never all.

TO SORROW.- Milnes.

SISTER Sorrow! sit beside me,
Or, if I must wander, guide me;
Let me take thy hand in mine,
Cold alike are mine and thine.

Think not, Sorrow, that I hate thee,-
Think not I am frightened at thee,-
Thou art come for some good end,

I will treat thee as a friend.

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TO SORROW.

I will say that thou art bound
My unshielded soul to wound
By some force without thy will,
And art tender-minded still.

I will say thou givest scope
To the breath and light of hope;
That thy gentle tears have weight
Hardest hearts to penetrate:

That thy shadow brings together Friends long lost in sunny weather, With an hundred offices

Beautiful and blest as these.

Softly takest thou the crown
From my haughty temples down;
Place it on thine own pale brow,
Pleasure wears one- why not thou?

Let the blossoms glitter there
On thy long, unbanded hair,
And, when I have borne my pain,
Thou wilt give them me again.

If thou goest, sister Sorrow!
I shall look for thee to-morrow,
I shall often see thee drest
As a masquerading guest:

And, howe'er thou hid'st the name,
I shall know thee still the same,
As thou sit'st beside me now,
With my garland on thy brow.

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

213

HUMILIBUS DAT GRATIAN.-Peacham about 1600.

THE mountains huge, that seem to check the sky,
And all the world with greatness over-peer,
With heath or moss for most part barren lie;
When valleys low doth kindly Phœbus cheer,
And with his heat in hedge and grove begets
The virgin primrose or sweet violets.

So God oft times denies unto the great

The gifts of nature, or his heavenly grace, And those that high in honor's chair are set Do feel their wants; when men of meaner place, Although they lack the others' golden spring, Perhaps are blest above the richest king.

ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. - Milnes.

I'm not where I was yesterday,
Though my home be still the same,
For I have lost the veriest friend
Whom ever a friend could name;
I'm not what I was yesterday,
Though change there be little to see,
For a part of myself has lapsed away
From Time to Eternity.

I have lost a thought, that many a year
Was most familiar food

To my inmost mind, by night or day,
In merry or plaintive mood;

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ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

I have lost a hope, that many a year

Looked far on a gleaming way,

When the walls of life were closing round,
And the sky was sombre gray.

For long, too long, in distant climes
My lot was cast, and then

A frail and casual intercourse
Was all I had with men ;
But lonelily in distant climes
I was well content to roam,

And felt no void, for my heart was full.
Of the friend it had left at home.

And now I was close to my native shores,
And I felt him at my side,

His spirit was in that homeward wind,
His voice in that homeward tide;

For what were to me my native shores,

But that they held the scene

Where my youth's most genial flowers had blown,
And affection's root had been?

I thought, how should I see him first,
How should our hands first meet;
Within his room, upon the stair,—

At the corner of the street?

I thought, where should I hear him first,
How catch his greeting tone?-
And thus I went up to his door,
And they told me he was gone!

O, what is life but a sum of love,
And death but to lose it all?

Weeds be for those that are left behind,
And not for those that fall

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 215

And now how mighty a sum of love
Is lost forever for me!

No, I'm not what I was yesterday,
Though change there be little to see.

TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.-Milton.

LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few are eminently seen
That labor up the hill of heavenly truth,
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.
Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends
To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,

And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure
Thou, when the bridegroom with his feastful friends
Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,

Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure.

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.— Keble.

"Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?"-MATTHEW Xviii. 21.

WHAT liberty so glad and gay,
As where the mountain boy,
Reckless of regions far away,
A prisoner lives in joy.

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