NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 1

29. Rhoda Broughton, 1840.

Eating my breakfast, I thanked God. For love
Shown in the cherries' flavor? Consecrate
So pretty an example? There's the fault!
We circumscribe omnipotence. Search sand
To unearth water; if first handful scooped
Yields thee a draught, what need of digging down
Full fifty fathoms deep to find a spring

Whereof the pulse would deluge half the land?
Drain the sufficient drop, and praise what checks
The drouth that glues thy tongue.

FERISHTAH'S FANCIES.

30. Mark Lemon, 1809.

I am near the end; but still not at the end:
All till the very end is trial in life.

THE RING AND THE BOOK.

DECEMBER

1. Princess of Wales, 1844.

Grow old along with me

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made :

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God; see all nor be

afraid."

RABBI BEN EZRA.

2. Battle of Austerlitz, 1805.

But why must cold spread? But wherefore bring change

To the spirit,

God meant should mate his with an infinite range,
And inherit

His power to put life in the darkness and cold?
Oh live and love worthily, bear and be bold!

3. Mary Lamb, 1764.

JAMES LEE'S WIFE.

As age-youth,

So death completes living, shows life in its truth.

4. Thomas Carlyle, 1795.

PARLEYINGS.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist;

Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good,

nor power

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

5. Mozart died, 1791.

ABT VOGLER.

And thus I knew this earth is not my sphere,

For I cannot so narrow me but that

I still exceed it.

PAULINE.

6. Richard H. Barham, 1788.

Pompilia, speaker.

So let him wait God's instant men call years:
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty! Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of his light
For us in the dark to rise by - and I rise.

THE RING AND THE BOOK.

7. Allan Cunningham, 1784.

Caponsacchi, speaker.

To have to do with nothing but the true,

In the main current of the general life,
But small experiences of every day,

Concerns of the particular hearth and home ;
To learn not only by a comet's rush

But a rose's birth,

not by the grandeur, God

But the comfort, Christ.

THE RING AND THE BOOK.

8. Mary Stuart, 1542.

Infancy? what if the rose-streak of morning
Pale and depart in a passion of tears ?

Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning!
Love once
e'en love's disappointment endears!
A minute's success pays the failure of years.

PARLEYINGS.

9. John Milton, 1608.

So, the year's done with !
(Love me forever!)
All March begun with
April's endeavor;
May-wreaths that bound me

June needs must sever!
Now snows fall round me,
Quenching June's fever
(Love me forever!)

EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES.

10. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 1787.

How can man love but what he yearns to help !
And that which men think weakness within strength,
But angels know for strength and stronger yet
What were it else but the first things made new,
But repetition of the miracle,

The divine instance of self-sacrifice

That never ends and aye begins for man?

THE RING AND THE BOOK.

11. Charles XII. killed in battle, 1718.

Soul,

Nothing has been that shall not bettered be

Hereafter.

PARLEYINGS.

12. Heinrich Heine, 1797.

Knowledge doubt

Even wherein it seems demonstrable!

Love, in the claim for love, that's gratitude
For apprehended pleasure, nowise doubt!

Pay its due tribute, -sure that pleasure is,
While knowledge may be, at the most.

FERISHTAH'S FANCIES

13. Arthur Penryhn Stanley, 1815.

Over the ball of it,

Peering and prying,

How I see all of it,

Life there, outlying!
Roughness and smoothness,

Shine and defilement,

Grace and uncouthness;

One reconcilement.

PISGAH-SIGHTS.

14. Prince Albert died, 1861.

Others mistrust and say "But time escapes!
Live now or never!"

He said "What's time? Leave now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever."

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL.

15. Henry Chorley, 1808.

I could not love him, but his mother did.

THE RING AND THE BOOK.