CRADLE SONG.

WHAT is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful things, no doubt:
Unwritten history!

Unfathomed mystery!

Yet he chuckles, and crows, and nods, and winks,

As if his head were as full of kinks

And curious riddles as any sphinx!

Warped by colic, and wet by tears,
Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,
Our little nephew will lose two years;
And he'll never know

Where the Summers go:

He need not laugh, for he'll find it so!

Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day?

Out from the shore of the unknown sea,

Tossing in pitiful agony;

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,

Specked with the barks of little souls:

CRADLE SONG.

Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide!

What does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof, that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think of his mother's breast,
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight,

Cup of his life and couch of his rest?

What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand, and buries his face

Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell,
With a tenderness she can never tell,
Though she murmur the words

Of all the birds,

Words she has learned to murmur well?
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep!

I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes in soft eclipse,
Over his brow and over his lips,
Out to his little finger-tips!
Softly sinking, down he goes!
Down he goes! Down he goes s!
He's hushed in sweet repose!

See!

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND.

HE STANDETH AT THE DOOR AND KNOCKETH.

In the silent midnight watches,
List-thy bosom door!

How it knocketh-knocketh-knocketh,
Knocketh evermore!

Say not 'tis thy pulse's beating:

'Tis thy heart of sin;

'Tis thy Saviour knocks, and crieth

Death comes on with reckless footsteps,

To the hall and hut:

Think you Death will tarry, knocking,
Where the door is shut?
Jesus waitethwaitethwaiteth,

But the door is fast;

Grieved, away thy Saviour goeth;

Death breaks in at last.

Then 'tis time to stand entreating

Christ to let thee in:

At the gate of Heaven beating,
Wailing for thy sin.

THE CROOKED FOOTPATH.

Nay!-alas, thou guilty creature!
Hast thou, then, forgot?

Jesus waited long to know thee;

Now he knows thee not.

Rev. ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE.

THE CROOKED FOOTPATH.

Ан, here it is! the sliding rail

That marks the old remembered spot, The gap that struck our schoolboy trail, The crooked path across the lot.

It left the road by school and church:
A pencilled shadow, nothing more,
That parted from the silver birch

And ended at the farmhouse door.

No line or compass traced its plan;
With frequent bends to left or right,
In aimless, wayward curves it ran,
But always kept the door in sight.

The gabled porch, with woodbine green,
The broken millstone at the sill,

Though many a rood might stretch between,
The truant child could see them still.

THE CROOKED FOOTPATH.

No rocks across the pathway lie,
No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown;
And yet it winds, we know not why,
And turns as if for tree or stone.

Perhaps some lover trod the way,
With shaking knees and leaping heart;
And so it often runs astray,

With sinuous sweep or sudden start.

Or one, perchance, with clouded brain,
From some unholy banquet reeled ;
And since, our devious steps maintain
His track across the trodden field.

Nay, deem not thus: no earth-born will

Could ever trace a faultless line;

Our truest steps are human still,
To walk unswerving were divine.

Truants from love, we dream of wrath;
O, rather let us trust the more!
Through all the wanderings of the path,
We still can see our Father's door!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.