22. Madame de Staël, 1766.

The Lady's face stopped its play,
As if her first hair had grown gray ·
For such things must begin some one day!
In a day or two she was well again ;
As who should say, "You labor in vain !
This is all a jest against God, who meant
I should ever be, as I am, content

And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be"!
So, smiling as at first went she.

THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS.

23. Shakespeare born, 1564; died, 1616.
I spoke as I saw.

I report, as a man may of God's work

- all's love,

yet all 's law.

SAUL.

24. Anthony Trollope, 1815.

Truth is within ourselves: it takes no rise

From outward things, whate'er you may believe
There is an inmost centre in us all,

Where truth abides in fulness; and around

;

Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception — which is truth.

PARACELSUS.

25. John Keble, 1792.

Love, hope, fear, faith these make humanity; These are its sign, and note, and character.

26. David Hume, 1711.

PARACELSUS.

If we have souls, know how to see and use,
One place performs, like any other place,
The proper service every place on earth

Was framed to furnish man with; serves alike
To give him note that, through the place he sees,
A place is signified he never saw,

But if he lacks not soul, may learn to know.

RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY.

27. Edward Gibbon, 1737.

For if you would remember me aright –

As I was born to be

- you must forget

All fitful, strange, and moody waywardness Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell Only on moments such as these, dear friends! My heart no truer, but my words and ways More true to it.

28. James Monroe, 1758.

Speed that may !

PARACELSUS.

Whatever be my chance or my despair,
What benefits mankind must glad me too.

PARACELSUS.

29. David Cox, 1783.

All nature self-abandoned, every tree
Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts
And fixed so, every flower and every weed,
No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat ;
All under God, each measured by itself.
See God's approval on his universe!
Let us do so - aspire to live as these
In harmony with truth, ourselves being true!

But Art,

IN A BALCONY.

30. James Montgomery, died, 1854.

wherein man nowise speaks to men,

Only to mankind,

Art may tell a truth

Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought,

Nor wrong

the thought, missing the mediate word.

THE RING AND THE BOOK.

MAY

1. Duke of Wellington, 1769.

There must be many a pair of friends
Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm
Moon births and the long evening ends.
So for their sakes, be May still May!
Let their new time, as mine of old,
Do all it did for me; I bid

Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.

MAY AND DEATH.

2. John Gorham Palfrey, 1796.

O world, as God has made it! All is beauty: And knowing this is love, and love is duty.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

3. Nicolas Macchiavelli, 1469.

You only do right to believe you will get better as you get older! All men do so, they are worst in childhood, improve in manhood, and get ready in old age for another world.

A SOUL'S TRAGEDY.

4. William Hickling Prescott, 1796.

'T is not what man Does which exalts him, but what man would do!

See the king- I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.

Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,

To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would –

knowing which,

I know that my service is perfect.

5. Empress Eugénie, 1826.

SAUL.

Life means — learning to abhor

The false, and love the true, truth treasured snatch

by snatch,

Waifs counted at their worth.

FIFINE AT THE FAIR.

6. Assassination of Cavendish and Burke, 1882. That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice

Lest

over,

you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD.

7. Robert Browning, 1812.

Ah, that brave

Bounty of poets, the one royal race
That ever was, or will be, in the world!
They give no gift that bounds itself and ends
I' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds
I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes
The man who only was a man before,

That he grows godlike in his turn, can give —
He also share the poet's privilege,

Bring forth new good, new beauty, from the old.

BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE.

8. Le Sage, 1688.

What were life

Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife
Through the ambiguous Present to the goal
Of some all-reconciling Future?

PARLEYINGS.