And beautiful as truth;

Such hast thou seen sink 'neath the arm of Death, As fall the flowers beneath the north wind's breath.

And gladder things than these

Thou hast looked on;-the bridal's jocund dance, The merry song, the young bride's timid glance, Smiles bright as sun-lit seas;

And thou hast seen the mother watch the dawn Of reason on the face of her first born.

Pass on, Old Year! with all

Thy good and evil, and thy joy and wo;
Though learning by experience here below,
Yet may we not recall

A single by-gone act; then onward speed,
Not all forgotten-men shall of thee read.

And think upon thee too,

And through the journeyings of their coming years, From thee shall date their sorrows, crimes and

tears;

To bless thee, weep thee, rue;

For e'er embalmed in many a throbbing heart,

To cheer or madden it, Old Year! thou art.

CHILDHOOD.

"The season of the spring dawns like the morning,
Bedewing childhood with unrelished beauties

Of gaudy sights."

Ford's Sun's Darling.

O CHILDHOOD! back on thy summer days,
Over past scenes, we cast the eye,

As when life was young we strained our gaze,
To scan the page of futurity;

And each dream of thy quiet and musing hours,
Which gilded life's coming tears,
Seem clustered around like morning flowers,
Those sunny and joyous years.

We looked in the world for a warmer love,
And a purer and brighter truth :
Truth, bright as that of the realms above,
Love, stronger than that of youth.
But oh! in a world as dark as this,

Have we ever found aught to bless

Our life, so sweet as a mother's kiss,
Or a sister's watchfulness?

In our grief and our gladness we see you smile
Dimmer, blest days! as the years glide by ;
As the lessening bloom of an ocean isle
Recedes from the voyager's eye.

A whispered tone may illumine all
Your visions of by-gone joy—

A flower-a bird-or the laughing call
Of a free and happy boy.

Glad visions, ye come! ye come! and again
We are children happy and free;

And we dance light as fays on the moon-lit plain,
For as light of heart are we.

And tones loved of old in our ears are ringing, And there beam upon us remembered eyes, And nature again is over us flinging

The spell of her mysteries.

Again in blue skies and green fields we rejoice, And the flowers shine in colors more deep, And we list to the swift brook that lent its low voice,

To the dreams of our childhood's sleep.

And we hail as a friend, each remembered thing

CHILDHOOD.

31

Which a place in our hearts once found, Though it sail through the sky upon burnished wing,

Or creep on the lowly ground.

Ye have flown! ye have flown! as swift as spring day

Flew by in your own glad time.

We know friends must die-but blue skies, are not they

The same in our childhood and prime? Alas! still as fairly swell o'er us the skies,

Earth hath changed not around or above; But we read not with open untutored eyes, Its lessons of wisdom and love.

Take back, then, each lesson of idle lore,

We have learned of the school man's art;
And give us that priceless gem once more,
A free and untrammelled heart.

THE LADY ARABELLA JOHNSON

was the daughter of the Earl of Lincoln; and though possessed of wealth, rank and beauty which entitled her to an alliance with the proudest of England's nobility, she, with a strength of mind at once rare and admirable, became the wife of a Puritan, and following him to this country, died at Salem soon after her arrival.

UPON an humble couch laid low,
An humble roof beneath,

An angel form reclines, her brow
Wet with the damps of death.
Yet she hath dared the ocean wave,
The sea storm, undismayed,
To find an early, lonely grave,
Beneath the forest shade.

Though wasted is that form, once fair,
And blanched that once bright cheek,
Yet is there something lingering there,
Of by-gone days to speak;
A tale of beauty to impart,
And queenly majesty,