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VI.

The straining oar and chamois chase
Had formed his limbs to strength and grace:
On wave and wind the boy would toss,
Was great, nor knew how great he was!

VII.

He knew not that his chosen hand,
Made strong by God, his native land
Would rescue from the shameful yoke
Of Slavery- -the which he broke !

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

I.

HE Shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:

And now they checked their eager
tread,

For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

II.

They told her how a glorious light, Streaming from a heavenly throng, Around them shone, suspending night! While sweeter than a Mother's song, Blest Angels heralded the Saviour's birth, Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III.

She listered to the tale divine,

And closer still the Babe she pressed; And while she cried, the Babe is mine!

The milk rushed faster to her breast:

Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

IV.

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate!
That strife should vanish, battle cease,

O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story,
Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory?

V.

And is not War a youthful king,

A stately hero clad in mail? Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;

Him earth's majestic monarchs hail

Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

VI.

"Tell this in some more courtly scene, To maids and youths in robes of state! I am a woman poor and mean,

And therefore is my soul elate.

War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the aged father tears his child!

VII.

"A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,

He kills the sire and starves the son;

The husband kills, and from her board

Steals all his widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

VIII.

"Then wisely is my soul elate,

That strife should vanish, battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate,

The Mother of the Prince of Peace.

Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn:

Peace, Peace on Earth, the Prince of Peace is born."

HUMAN LIFE,

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. A FRAGMENT.

|F dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we

fare

As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and
doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes,
Surplus of nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,

She formed with restless hands unconsciously.

Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes thy fears, The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create And to repay the other! Why rejoices

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,

That such a thing, as thou, feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none !
Thy being's being is contradiction.

AN ODE TO THE RAIN.

COMPOSED BEFORE DAY-LIGHT, ON THE MORNING APPOINTED FOR THE DEPARTURE OF A VERY WORTHY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR;

WHOM IT WAS FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN.

I.

KNOW it is dark; and though I have lain

Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain,

I have not once opened the lids of my

eyes, But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. O Rain! that I lie listening to,

You're but a doleful sound at best:
I owe you little thanks, 'tis true,
For breaking thus my needful rest!
Yet if, as soon as it is light,

O Rain! you will but take your flight,
I'll neither rail, nor malice keep,
Though sick and sore for want of sleep:
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

II.

O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound,
The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!'
You know, if you know aught, that we,
Both night and day, but ill agree:

For days, and months, and almost years,
Have limped on through this vale of tears,
Since body of mine, and rainy weather,
Have lived on easy terms together.
Yet if, as soon as it is light,

O Rain! you will but take your flight,
Though you should come again to-morrow,
And bring with you both pain and sorrow;
Though stomach should sicken, and knees should
swell-

I'll nothing speak of you but well.

But only now for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

III.

Dear Rain! I ne'er refused to say
You're a good creature in your way.
Nay, I could write a book mysel
Would fit a parson's lower shelf,

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