Who late and early doth God pray

More of His grace than gifts to lend ;
And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands,

Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing, yet hath all.

O READER ! hast thou ever stood to see

The holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives

Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen

Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle, through their prickly round,

Can reach to wound;
But as they grow, where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,

And moralise :
And in this wisdom of the holly-tree

Can emblems see
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear

Harsh and austere ;
To those who on my leisure would intrude,

Reserved and rude ;
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,

Some harshness shew,
All vain asperities I, day by day,

Would wear away ;
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.

And as, when all the summer trees are seen

So bright and green,
The holly leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they ;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly tree?
So serious should my youth appear among

The thoughtless throng;
So would I seem, amid the young and gay,

More grave than they ;
That in my age, as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.

Crowns have their compass, length of days their date,
Triumphs their tombs, felicities their fate;
Of more than earth can earth make none partaker,
But knowledge makes the king most like his Maker.

Ascribed to SHAKESPEARE.

The Homes

OF

ENGLANI

FELICIA

HEMANS.

The stately homes of England,

How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land !
The deer across their greensward bound,

Through shade and sunny gleam;
And the swan glides past them with the sound

Of some rejoicing stream.
The merry homes of England !

Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love

Meet in the ruddy light!
There woman's voice flows forth in song,

Or childhood's tale is told ;
Or lips move tunefully along

Some glorious page of old.

The blessed homes of England !

How softly on their bowers Is laid the holy quietness

That breathes from Sabbath hours ! Solemn, yet sweet, the church-bell's chime

Floats through their woods at morn; All other sounds, in that still time,

Of breeze and leaf are born.

The cottage homes of England !

By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,

And round the hamlet fanes.

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,

Each from its nook of leaves ; And fearless there the lowly sleep,

As the bird beneath their eaves.

The free, fair homes of England !

Long, long, in hut and hall, May hearts of native proof be reared, : To guard each hallowed wall! And green

for And bright the flowery sod, Where first the child's glad spirit loves

Its country and its God!

ever

be the groves,

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land ! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand ! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall

go

down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung !

YE Mariners of England !

That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,

The battle and the breeze !
Your glorious standard launch again

To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow;
* While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.
The spirits of your fathers

Shall start from every wave ! -
For the deck it was their field of fame,

And Ocean was their grave :
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,

Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak,

She quells the floods below,-
As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.