THOUGHTS FIT TO TREASURE UP.

159

November Twenty-third.

Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.

November Twenty-fourth.

I find earth not gray but rosy,

Heaven not grim but fair of hue;
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.

Do I stand and stare?

All's blue.

November Twenty-fifth.

Death meant, to spurn the ground,

Soar to the sky,—die well and you do that.

November Twenty-sixth.

It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce;
It's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last returns the First,

Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.

November Twenty-seventh.

Make no more giants, God,

But elevate the race at once.

November Twenty-eighth.

Who knows what is fit for us? Had fate
Purposed bliss here should sublimate
My being had I signed the bond-
Still one must lead some life beyond,
Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.

November Twenty-ninth.

He who did well in war just earns the right To begin doing well in peace.

November Thirtieth.

Ever judge of men by their professions. For though the bright moment of promising is but a moment, and cannot be prolonged, yet if sincere in its moment's extravagant

goodness, why, trust it, and know the man by it, I say, not by his performance; which is half the world's work, interfere as the world needs must with its accidents and circumstances: the profession was purely the man's own. I judge people by what they might be-not are, nor will be.

DECEMBER.

And Winter near with rest and Xmas play.