That the rulers must obey;
    That the givers shall increase;
  That Duty lights the way
    For the beautiful feet of Peace;—­

  In the darkest night of the year,
    When the stars have all gone out,
  That courage is better than fear,
    That faith is truer than doubt;

  And fierce though the fiends may fight,
    And long though the angels hide,
  I know that Truth and Eight
    Have the universe on their side;

  And that somewhere, beyond the stars,
    Is a Love that is better than fate;
  When the night unlocks her bars
    I shall see Him, and I will wait.

WASHINGTON GLADDEN.

* * * * *

THE END OF THE PLAY.

  The play is done,—­the curtain drops,
    Slow falling to the prompter’s bell;
  A moment yet the actor stops,
    And looks around, to say farewell. 
  It is an irksome word and task;
    And, when he’s laughed and said his say,
  He shows, as he removes the mask,
    A face that’s anything but gay.

  One word, ere yet the evening ends,—­
    Let’s close it with a parting rhyme;
  And pledge a hand to all young friends,
    As flits the merry Christmas time;
  On life’s wide scene you, too, have parts
    That fate erelong shall bid you play;
  Good night!—­with honest, gentle hearts
    A kindly greeting go alway!

  Good night!—­I’d say the griefs, the joys,
    Just hinted in this mimic page,
  The triumphs and defeats of boys,
    Are but repeated in our age;
  I’d say your woes were not less-keen,
    Your hopes more vain, than those of men,—­
  Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen
    At forty-five played o’er again.

  I’d say we suffer and we strive
    Not less nor more as men than boys,—­
  With grizzled beards at forty-five,
    As erst at twelve in corduroys;
  And if, in time of sacred youth,
    We learned at home to love and pray,
  Pray Heaven that early love and truth
    May never wholly pass away.

  And in the world, as in the school,
    I’d say how fate may change and shift,—­
  The prize be sometimes with the fool,
    The race not always to the swift: 
  The strong may yield, the good may fall,
    The great man be a vulgar clown,
  The knave be lifted over all,
    The kind cast pitilessly down.

  Who knows the inscrutable design? 
    Blessed be Be who took and gave! 
  Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,
    Be weeping at her darling’s grave? 
  We bow to Heaven that willed 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.