IV.

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.

11

James Montgomery.

1771.

MAN IMMORTAL.

MAN, to this narrow sphere confined,
Dies when he but begins to live.
Oh! if there be no world on high
To yield his powers unfettered scope;
If man be only born to die,

Whence this inheritance of hope?
Wherefore to him alone were lent
Riches that never can be spent?
Enough, not more, to all the rest,
For life and happiness, was given ;
To man, mysteriously unblest,
Too much for any state but heaven.

It is not thus; it cannot be,
That one so gloriously endowed

With views that reach eternity,

Should shine and vanish like a cloud:
Is there a God? All nature shows

There is,-
and yet no mortal knows :
The mind that could this truth conceive,
Which brute sensation never taught,
No longer to the dust would cleave,
But grow immortal with the thought.

TO ONE IN AFFLICTION.

LIFT up thine eyes, afflicted soul !
From earth lift up thine eyes,
Though dark the evening shadows roll,
And daylight beauty dies;

One sun is set, a thousand more

Their rounds of glory run,

Where science lends thee to explore

In every star a sun.

Thus when some long loved comfort ends,

And nature would despair,

Faith to the heaven of heaven ascends,

And meets ten thousand there;

First faint and small, then clear and bright,
They gladden all the gloom,

And stars, that seem but points of light,
The rank of suns assume.

DE PROFUNDIS.

OUT of the depths of woe

To Thee, O Lord! I cry;

Darkness surrounds me, but I know

That Thou art ever nigh

Then hearken to my voice;

Give ear to my complaint;

Thou bid'st the mourning soul rejoice,

Thou comfortest the faint.

I cast my hope on Thee;

Thou can'st, Thou wilt, forgive;

Wert Thou to mark iniquity,

Who in Thy sight could live?

Humbly on Thee I wait,

Confessing all my sin :

Lord! I am knocking at Thy gate;

Open, and take me in!

Like those, whose longing eyes

Watch, till the morning star

(Though late, and seen through tempests) rise,

Heaven's portals to unbar,

Like those I watch and pray,

And, though it tarry long,

Catch the first gleam of welcome day,
Then burst into a song.