Wishes o’erjoyed with humble things;
        A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,
        Content that from employment springs,
        A heart that in his labour sings! 
        What doth the Poor Man’s Son inherit? 
        A patience learnt of being poor;
        Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it: 
        A fellow-feeling that is sure
        To make the Outcast bless his door.

          Oh!  Rich Man’s Son, there is a toil
        That with all others level stands;
        Large charity doth never soil,
        But only whiten soft white hands—­
        This is the best crop from thy lands. 
        A heritage, it seems to me,
        Worth being rich to hold in fee.

* * * * *

        Oh!  Poor Man’s Son, scorn not thy state;
        There is worse weariness than thine,
        In merely being rich and great;
        Toil only gives the soul to shine,
        And-makes rest fragrant and benign! 
        Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
        Are equal in the earth at last;
        Both children of the same great God! 
        Prove title to your heirship vast
        By record of a well-spent past. 
        A heritage, it seems to me,
        Well worth a life to hold in fee.

LADY CLARE.

BY LORD TENNYSON.

It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn;
Lovers long betroth’d were they
They two will wed the morrow morn;
God’s blessing on the day!

“He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well,” said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,
Said, “Who was this that went from thee?”
“It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare;
“To-morrow he weds with me.”

“O God be thank’d!” said Alice the nurse,
“That all comes round so just and fair: 
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare.”

“Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse,”
Said Lady Clare, “that ye speak so wild?”
“As God’s above,” said Alice the nurse,
“I speak the truth:  you are my child.

“The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast;
I speak the truth as I live by bread! 
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead.”

“Falsely, falsely have ye done,
O mother,” she said, “if this be true,
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due.”

“Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,
“But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald’s,
When you are man and wife.”