If I can lend
A strong hand to the falling, or defend
The right against one single envious strain,
My life, though bare,
Perhaps, of much that seemeth dear and fair
To us of earth, will not have been in vain.
The purest joy,
Most near to heaven, far from earth's alloy,
Is bidding cloud give way to sun and shine;
And 'twill be well
If on that day of days the angels tell
Of me, "She did her best for one of Thine."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 66: Author unknown.]

IV. THE BUGLE SONG[67]

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, dearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 67: By Alfred Tennyson.]

V. THE NINETIETH PSALM

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the
earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Thou turns man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past,
and as a watch in the night.

Thou carried them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the
morning they are like grass which groweth up.

In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut
down, and withereth.

For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light
of thy countenance.

For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a
tale that is told.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of
strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and
sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we