Or lurk all day by running brooks
To capture fish with cruel hooks,
And with a patient, deep, deceit
Betray them with a counterfeit.

VI.

So let the thoughtless sneer or laugh;
I'll raise my voice in thy behalf.
The life thou livest, Nature meant―
It cannot be but innocent;

She

gave thee instinct to obey, Her faultless hand designed thy prey; And if thou killest, well we know 'Tis need, not sport, compels the blow.

VII.

And while I plead thy simple case
Against the slanderers of thy race,
And think thy skilful web alone
Might for some venial faults atone,
I will not pass unnoticed by
Thy patience in calamity,
Thy courage to endure or wait,

Thy self-reliance strong as fate.

VIII.

Should stormy wind, or thunder-shower
Assail thy web in evil hour;
Should ruthless hand of lynx-eyed boy,

Or the prim gardener's rake destroy

The clever mathematic maze

Thou spreadest in our garden ways,
No vain repinings mar thy rest,
No idle sorrows fill thy breast.

IX.

Thou mayst perchance deplore thy lot,
Or sigh that fortune loves thee not;
But never dost thou sulk and mope,
Or lie and groan, forgetting hope;
Still with a patience, calm and true,
Thou workest all thy work anew,
As if thou felt that Heaven is just
every creature of the dust,

Το

X.

And that the Providence whose plan
Gives life to spiders as to man,

Will ne'er accord its aid divine

To those who lazily repine;

But that all strength to those is given

Who help themselves, and trust in Heaven.

Poor insect to that faith I cling—

I learn thy lesson while I sing.

THE OLD YEAR'S REMONSTRANCE.

I.

THE Old Year lay on his death-bed lone,
And ere he died he spoke to me,
Low and solemn in under tone,
Mournfully, reproachfully.

The fading eyes in his snow-white head
Shone bright the while their lids beneath.
These were the words the Old Year said-
I shall never forget them while I breathe:-

66

II.

Did you not promise when I was born"—
Sadly he spoke, and not in ire—

"To treat me kindly-not to scorn—

And to the debts
pay

you

owed my sire?

Did

you not vow, with an earnest heart,

Your unconsidered hours to hive?

And to throw no day in waste away,

Of my three hundred sixty-five?

III.

"Did you not swear to your secret self, Before my beard was a second old, That whatever you'd done to my fathers gone, You'd prize my minutes more than gold? Did you not own, with a keen regret, That the past was a time of waste and sin ? But that with me, untainted yet, Wisdom and duty should begin?

IV.

66 Did you not oft the vow renew

That never with me should folly dwell?
That, however Fate might deal with you,
You'd prize me much, and use me well?
That never a deed of scorn or wrath,
Or thought unjust of your fellow-men,
Should, while I lived, obscure your path,
Or enter in your heart again?

V.

"Did you not fail?-but my tongue is weak Your sad short-comings to recall.”

And the Old Year sobbed-he could not speak

He turned his thin face to the wall.

"Old Year! Old Year! I've done you wrong—

Hear my repentance ere you die!

Linger awhile!" Ding-dong, ding-dong—
The joy-bells drowned his parting sigh.

VI.

"Old Year! Old Year!" he could not hear,

He yielded placidly his breath.

I loved him little while he was here,
I prized him dearly after death.
New Year! now smiling at my side,
Most bitterly the past I rue.
I've learned a lesson since he died,
I'll lead a better life with you.

THE NEW YEAR'S PROMISES.

I.

THE New Year came with a bounding step,
Jovial, lusty, full of glee;

While the brazen rhymes of the church-bell chimes,
Like an eager crowd exultingly,

Hurried along on the crisp cold air,

To herald his birth to thee and me.

II.

He stood beside us fair and young,

He laid his warm hand upon

mine;

Our hearth glowed bright with a cheerful light,
And our eyes lit up with a keener shine,
As we raised a goblet brimming o'er,
And pledged him in the ripe red wine.

III.

I know not if the merry guests
Heard the words that I could hear;
If on that morn when he was born
They held communion with the Year;
But this I know, he spoke to me
In low sweet accents, silver clear :-

IV.

"My sire," quoth he, "is dead and gone; He served thee ill or served thee well,