THE MORAL OF LIFE.

(Front the Epilogue to Doctor Birch and his Young Friends] I'd say, we suffer and we strive Not less nor more as men than boys; With grizzled beards at forty-five, As erst at twelve, in corduroys.

And if; in time of sacred youth, We learn'd at home to love and pray, Pray Heaven, that early Love and froth May never wholly pass away.

And in the world, as in the school, I'd say, how fate may change and shift; The prize lie sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift.

The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, The knave be lifted over all, The kind cast pitilessly down.

Who knows the inscrutable design? Bless'd be He who took and gave!

Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling's grave ? • We bow to Heaven that will'd it so, That darkly rules the fate of all, That sends the respite or the blow, That's free to give or to recall.

So each shall mourn, in life's advance, Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely kill'd; Shall grieve for many a perfect chance, And longing passion tintulfilfd, Amen ! whatever fate be sent, - Pray God the heart may kindly glow, Although the head with cares be bent, And whiten'd with the winter snow.

Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let young and old accept their part, And bow before the Awful Will, And bear it with an honest heart.

Who misses, or who wins the prize ?

Go, lose or conquer as you can: But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

A gentleman, or old or young!

-(Bear kindly with my humble lays)—

he sacred chorus first was sung Upon the first of Christmas-days:

The Shepherds heard it overhead—

The joyful Angels raised it then: Glory to Heaven on high, it said, And peace on Earth to gentle men.

• a C. B. ob. 29 Nov. 1848 ; at. 42.