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THE DIRGE OF THE OLD YEAR.

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.

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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.

IO

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THE STARLING, OR CAPTIVITY.

1. And as for the Bastile,' the terror is in the word. Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastile is but another word for a tower, and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of. Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year; but with nine livres a day, and pen, and ink, and paper, and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within, at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

2. I had some occasion-I forget what-to step into the court-yard as I settled this account; and remember I walked down-stairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning. Beshrew the sombre pencil! said I vauntingly,3 for I envy not its powers which paint the evils of life with so hard and deadly a colouring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them.

3. ""Tis true," said I, correcting the proposition, "the Bastile is not an evil to be despised; but strip it of its towers, fill up the fosse, unbarricade the doors, call it simply a confinement, and suppose 'tis some tyrant of a

distemper and not of a man which holds you in it, the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint."

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4. I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained " it could not get out." I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out without further attention. In In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage: "I can't get out, I can't get out," said the starling.

5. I stood looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity: "I can't get out," said the starling. "God help thee!" said I; "but I'll let thee out, cost what it will." So I turned about

the cage to get the door.

6. It was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it as if impatient. "I fear, poor creature," said I, "I cannot set thee at liberty." No," said the starling, "I can't get out; I can't get out," said the starling.

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7. I vow I never had my affections more

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"Looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage."

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