THEY SAY I'M OLD.

[EBENEZER ELLIOTT.]

They say I'm old; because I'm grey,
The aged bard, they now call me!
But grey or green, I boldly say

We're not old yet, but mean to be.

Though sixty years and ten may doom
Tired men to rest with worms and me;
With sixty gone, and ten to come,
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

My eyes

flash flame, my heart is glad,
When poor men shake their sides with glee;
And though they cry, "Come on, old lad!"
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

While soars the skylark high and higher,
And bids the mountains wake to see
How morn can fill my veins with fire,
We're not old yet, but mean to be.

Thou brightening cloud, that sail'st afar
Where screams the falcon, wheeling free!
Tell yonder fading, winking star,

We're not old yet, but mean to be.

IF I HAD KNOWN THOU COULDST HAVE DIED.

[The Rev. CHARLES WOLFE.]

If I had known thou couldst have died,
I might not have wept for thee:
But I forgot when by thy side,
That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past,
The time would e'er be o'er,
That I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again;
And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain!

But when I speak thou dost not say
What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary! thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold, and all serene-

I still might press thy silent heart,
And where thy smiles have been!
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there I lay thee in thy grave-
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;

And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart,
In thinking, too, of thee!

Yet there was round thee such a dawn

Of light ne'er seen before,

As fancy never could have drawn,

And never can restore.

SONG TO THE OLD AND NEW YEAR.

A. TENNYSON.]

[Music by J. BLOCKLEY.

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going-let him go-
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor-
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,"
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right-
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease—

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old-
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land-
Ring in the Christ that is to be!

THE WINTER TREE.

F.LIZA COOK.]

[Music by J. BLOCKLEY,

What a happy life was mine,

When the sunbeams used to twine

Like golden threads about my summer suit!
When my warp and woof of

Let enough of light between

green

Just to dry the dew that lingered at my root.

What troops of friends I had

When my form was richly clad,

And I was fair 'mid fairest things of earth!
Good company came round,

And I heard no rougher sound

Than Childhood's laugh in bold and leaping mirth.

The old man sat him down
To note my emerald crown,

And rest beneath my branches thick and bright;
The squirrel on my spray

Kept swinging all the day,

And the song-birds chattered to me through the night.

The dreaming poet laid

His soft harp in my shade,

And

sung my beauty, chorused by the bee; The village maiden came,

To read her own dear name

Carved on my bark, and bless the broad green treo.

The merry music breathed,

While the bounding dancers wreathed In mazy windings round my giant stem; And the joyous words they poured,

As they trod the chequered sward,

Told the green tree was a worshipped thing by them.

Oh! what troops of friends I had
To make my strong heart glad,

What kind ones answered to my rustling call!
I was hailed with smiling praise,

In the glowing summer days,

And the beautiful green tree was loved by all.

But the bleak wind hath swept by,
And the grey cloud dimmed the sky,
My latest leaf has left my inmost bough;
I creak in grating tones,

Like the skeleton's bleached tones,
And not a footstep seeks the old tree now.

I stand at morning's dawn,
The cheerless and forlorn;

The sunset comes and finds me still alone;
The mates who shared my bloom
Have left me in my gloom;

Birds, poet, dancers, children-all are gone.

The hearts that turn'd this way
When I stood in fine array

Forsake me now as though I ceased to be;
I win no painter's gaze-

I hear no minstrel's lays

The very nest falls from the leafless tree.

But the kind and merry train
Will be sure to come again,

With love and smiles as ready as of yore;

I must only wait to wear

My robe so rich and fair,

And they will throng as they have throng'd before.

Oh! ye who dwell in pride,

With parasites beside,

Only lose your summer green leaves, and ye'll see That the courtly friends will change

Into things all cold and strange,

And forget ye as they do the winter tree!

THE LARK.

[JAMES HOGG.]

Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,

Bless'd is thy dwelling-place;

Oh! to abide in the desert with thee!

E