Life

Lessons

Polonius to Laertes

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no

tongue

No any unproportion'd thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of
steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Be-

ware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,

Bear't, that th' opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg-

ment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and sta-
tion,

Are of a most select and generous choice in that.

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-to thine own self be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Life Lesson

From "Hamlet."

The Olive Tree

Said an ancient hermit, bending
Half in prayer upon his knee,
"Oil I need for midnight watching,
I desire an olive tree."

Then he took a tender sapling,
Planted it before his cave,
Spread his trembling hands above it,
As his benison he gave.

But he thought, the rain it needeth,
That the root may drink and swell;
"God! I pray Thee send Thy showers!"
So a gentle shower fell.

"Lord, I ask for beams of summer,
Cherishing this little child."

Then the dripping clouds divided,

And the sun looked down and smiled.

"Send it frost to brace its tissues,

O my God!" the hermit cried.

Life Lessons

Then the plant was bright and hoary,
But at evensong it died.

Went the hermit to a brother

Sitting in his rocky cell:
"Thou an olive tree possessest;
How is this, my brother, tell?

"I have planted one, and prayed,
Now for sunshine, now for rain;
God hath granted each petition,
Yet my olive tree hath slain!"

Said the other, "I entrusted
To its God my little tree;
He who made knew what it needed,
Better than a man like me.

"Laid I on him no condition,
Fixed no ways and means; so I
Wonder not my olive thriveth,
Whilst thy olive tree did die."

SABINE BARING-GOULD.

Coronation

At the king's gate the subtle noon
Wove filmy yellow nets of sun;
Into the drowsy snare too soon
The guards fell one by one.

Through the king's gate, unquestioned then,

Life

A beggar went, and laughed, "This brings Lessons

Me chance, at last, to see if men

Fare better, being kings."

The king sat bowed beneath his crown,
Propping his face with listless hand;
Watching the hour-glass sifting down
Too slow its shining sand.

"Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me?"
The beggar turned, and pitying,
Replied, like one in dream, "Of thee,
Nothing. I want the king."

Uprose the king, and from his head

66

Shook off the crown, and threw it by. "O man! thou must have known," he said, "A greater king than I."

Through all the gates, unquestioned then,
Went king and beggar hand in hand.
Whispered the king, "Shall I know when
Before his throne I stand?”

The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste
Were wiping from the king's hot brow
The crimson lines the crown had traced-
"This is his presence now."

essons

Lite At the king's gate, the crafty noon
Unwove its yellow nets of sun;
Out of their sleep in terror soon

The guards aked one by one

"Ho there! Ho there! Has no man seen
The king?" The cry ran to and fro;
Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween,
The laugh that free men know.

On the king's gate the moss grew gray;

The king came not. They called him dead: And made his eldest son one day

Slave in his father's stead.

H. H.

December

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember

Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,

With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,