Who knows the inscrutable design?
Blessed 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.

This crowns his feast with wine and wit:
Who brought him to that mirth and state?
His betters, see, below him sit,

Or hunger hopeless at the gate.
Who bade the mud from Dives' wheel
To spurn the rags of Lazarus?
Come, brother, in that dust we'll kneel,
Confessing Heaven that ruled it thus.

So each shall mourn, in life's advance,
Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed;
Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance,
And longing passion unfulfilled.
Amen! whatever fate be sent,

Pray God the heart may kindly glow,
Although the head with cares be bent,
And whitened 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);
The 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.

My song, save this, is little worth;
I lay the weary pen aside,

And wish you health, and love, and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas-tide.

As fits the holy Christmas birth,

Be this, good friends, our carol still—
Be peace on earth, be peace on earth,
To men of gentle will.

Coventry kersey Dighton Patmore

1823-1896

THE TOYS

My little Son, who look'd from thoughtful eyes And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise, Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,

I struck him, and dismiss'd

With hard words and unkiss'd,

His Mother, who was patient, being dead.

Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,

I visited his bed,

But found him slumbering deep,

With darken'd eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.

And I, with moan,

Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;

For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,

A box of counters and a red-vein'd stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach
And six or seven shells,

A bottle with bluebells

And two French copper coins, ranged there with care

ful art,

To comfort his sad heart.

So when that night I pray'd

To God, I wept, and said:

Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,

Not vexing Thee in death,

And Thou rememberest of what toys

We made our joys,

How weakly understood,

Thy great commanded good,

Then, fatherly not less

Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay,

Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say,

"I will be sorry for their childishness.”

THE TWO DESERTS

Not greatly moved with awe am I

To learn that we may spy

Five thousand firmaments beyond our own.

The best that's known

Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small.
View'd close, the Moon's fair ball

Is of ill objects worst,

A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd,

accurst;

And now they tell

That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst
Too horribly for hell.

So, judging from these two,

As we must do,

The Universe, outside our living Earth,
Was all conceiv'd in the Creator's mirth,
Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep,
To make dirt cheap.

Put by the Telescope!

Better without it man may see,

Stretch'd awful in the hush'd midnight,

The ghost of his eternity.

Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye
The things which near us lie,
Till Science rapturously hails,
In the minutest water-drop,
A torment of innumerable tails.
These at the least do live.
But rather give

A mind not much to pry

Beyond our royal-fair estate

Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great.
Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are,
Pressing to catch our gaze,
And out of obvious ways

Ne'er wandering far.

Sydney Thompson Dobell

1824-1874

KEITH OF RAVELSTON

(From A Nuptial Eve)

The murmur of the mourning ghost
That keeps the shadowy kine,

"Oh, Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!"

Ravelston, Ravelston,

The merry path that leads Down the golden morning hill, And thro' the silver meads;

Ravelston, Ravelston,

The stile beneath the tree,

The maid that kept her mother's kine, The song that sang she!

She sang her song, she kept her kine,
She sat beneath the thorn

When Andrew Keith of Ravelston
Rode thro' the Monday morn;

His henchmen sing, his hawk-bells ring,
His belted jewels shine!

Oh, Keith of Ravelston,
The sorrows of thy line!

Year after year, where Andrew came,
Comes evening down the glade,
And still there sits a moonshine ghost
Where sat the sunshine maid.

Her misty hair is faint and fair,
She keeps the shadowy kine;

Oh, Keith of Ravelston,

The sorrows of thy line!

I lay my hand upon the stile,
The stile is lone and cold,
The burnie that goes babbling by
Says nought that can be told.