December First. Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out. December Second. I shall never, in the years remaining, statues, Make music that should all express me; you So it seems I stand on my attainment, This of verse alone, one life allows me; December Third. Oh, speak through me now! Would I suffer for him that I love? So would'st thou,-so wilt thou! . . . He who did most shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. 'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for; Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love. December Fifth. O world as God has made it! All is beauty, And knowing this is love, and love is duty, What further may be sought for or declared? December Sixth. The moral sense grows but by exercise. 'Tis even as man grew probatively Initiated in Godship, set to make A fairer moral world than this he finds, Guess now, what shall be known hereafter. December Seventh. How it disgusts when weakness, false-refined, Censures the honest, rude, effective strength, When sickly dreamers of the impossible Decry plain sturdiness which does the feat With eyes wide open! December Eighth. See this soul of ours! How it strives weakly in a child, is loosed In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled By age and waste, set free at last by death: Why is it flesh enthralls it or enthrones? What is this flesh we have to penetrate? December Ninth. And the way to end dreams is to break them, stand, Walk, go. December Tenth. And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue hence? Why rushed the discords in, but that har mony should be prized? |