| |
| 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; | 5 |
| And, when he ’s laugh’d 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, | 10 |
| And pledge a hand to all young friends, | |
| As fits the merry Christmas time; | |
| On life’s wide scene you, too, have parts, | |
| That fate ere long shall bid you play; | |
| Good-night!—with honest gentle hearts | 15 |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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 learn’d at home to love and pray, | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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? | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| Confessing heaven that rul’d it thus. | |
| |
| So each shall mourn, in life’s advance, | |
| Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely kill’d, | |
| Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance, | |
| And longing passion unfulfill’d. | 60 |
| Amen!—whatever fate be sent, | |
| Pray God the heart may kindly glow, | |
| Although the head with cares be bent, | |
| And whiten’d with the winter snow. | |
| |
| Come wealth or want, come good or ill, | 65 |
| 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; | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| Upon the first of Christmas days; | |
| The shepherds heard it overhead— | |
| The joyful angels rais’d it then: | |
| Glory to heaven on high, it said, | |
| And peace on earth to gentle men! | 80 |
| |
| 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, | 85 |
| Be this, good friends, our carol still: | |
| Be peace on earth, be peace on earth, | |
| To men of gentle will. | |
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