Our birds of song are silent now,
        Few are the flowers blooming,
      Yet life is in the frozen bough,
        And freedom’s spring is coming;
      And freedom’s tide creeps up alway,
        Though we may strand in sorrow;
      And our good bark, aground to-day,
        Shall float again to-morrow.

      ’Tis weary watching wave by wave,
        And yet the Tide heaves onward;
      We climb, like Corals, grave by grave,
        That pave a pathway sunward;
      We are driven back, for our next fray
        A newer strength to borrow,
      And where the Vanguard camps to-day
        The Rear shall rest to-morrow!

      Through all the long, dark night of years
        The people’s cry ascendeth,
      And earth is wet with blood and tears: 
        But our meek sufferance endeth! 
      The few shall not for ever sway—­
        The many moil in sorrow;
      The powers of hell are strong to-day,
        The Christ shall rise to-morrow!

      Though hearts brood o’er the past, our eyes
        With smiling futures glisten! 
      For lo! our day bursts up the skies
        Lean out your souls and listen! 
      The world is rolling freedom’s way,
        And ripening with her sorrow;
      Take heart! who bear the Cross to-day,
        Shall wear the Crown to-morrow!

      O youth! flame-earnest, still aspire
        With energies immortal! 
      To many a heaven of desire
        Our yearning opes a portal;
      And though age wearies by the way,
        And hearts break in the furrow—­
      Youth sows the golden grain to-day—­
        The harvest comes to-morrow!

      Build up heroic lives, and all
        Be like a sheathen sabre,
      Ready to flash out at God’s call—­
        O chivalry of labour! 
      Triumph and toil are twins; though they
        Be singly born in sorrow,
      And ’tis the martyrdom to-day
        Brings victory to-morrow!

RING OUT, WILD BELLS.

BY LORD TENNYSON.

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.