What does he think of his mother's breast,
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight,
Cup of his joy, 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 so well!
Now he thinks he'll go to sleep!

I can see the shadows creep
Over his eyes in soft eclipse,
Out in his little finger tips,
Softly sinking down he goes,
Down he goes, down he goes.
See! he is hushed in sweet repose!

PHILIP, MY KING.

"Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty."

LOOK at me with thy large brown eyes,

Philip, my King.

Round where the enshadowing purple lies
Of babyhood's royal dignities;

Lay on my neck thy tiny hand

With love's invisible sceptre laden;

I am thine Esther to command,

Till thou shalt find a queen-handmaiden,
Philip, my King.

Oh, the day when thou goest a wooing,
Philip, my King!

When those beautiful lips 'gin suing,
And some gentle heart's bars undoing,
Thou dost enter love-crowned, and there
Sittest love glorified. Rule kindly,
Tenderly over thy kingdom fair;

For we that love, ah! we love so blindly,
Philip, my King.

Up from thy sweet mouth, up to thy brow,
Philip, my King!

The spirit that there lies sleeping now
May ride like a giant, and make men bow,
As to one heaven-chosen amongst his peers-
My Saul, than thy brethren taller and fairer,
Let me behold thee in future years;
Yet thy head needeth a circlet rarer,
Philip, my King.

A wreath not of gold, but palm-one day,
Philip, my King!

Thou too must tread, as we trod, a way
Thorny and cruel, and cold and gray;
Rebels within thee, and foes without,

Will snatch at thy crown. But march on glorious, Martyr, yet monarch, till angels shout,

As thou sit'st at the feet of God, victorious,
Philip, my King!

Miss Muloch.

E sings to the wide world, and she to her nest;

HE

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

E

J. R. Lowell,

All her little ways are witty;

And when she sings her little ditty, Every word is just as pretty

As can be

Not another in the city

Sweet as she.

You don't think so-never saw her,

Wish you could

See her with her playthings clattering,
Hear her little tongue a chattering;
Little dancing feet come pattering—
Think you would

Love her just as well I do,
If you could!

Every grandma's only darling,

I suppose,

Is as sweet and bright a blossom,

Is a treasure to her bosom,

Is as cheering and endearing,

As my rose.

Heavenly Father, spare them to us,

Till life's close.

Mrs. Gage.

NOT AN EVERY-DAY BABY.

You know how apt babies are to be remarkable; but, sir, perhaps you never saw a baby like this; I presume to say, you never did. That it is fair and round-faced; that it never cries; that it is always "jolly," so to speak. These things are something, but what I have to add, is the penetrating sagacity with which it selects out one particular person, and wherever that person may go-up, down, or sideways, there follow the baby's eyes with the pertinacity of a magnet! And who do you suppose is that individual? The father? the mother? or grandfather? No, sir! I am that individual! You will ask, perhaps, if I am all the time dandling it. Never had the baby in my arms but once in my life, and then-but, as I was saying, there is no doubt it will be an extraordinary child.

Mansfield.

CHILDREN.

THE smallest are near to God, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun. Were I only for a time almighty and powerful, I would create a little world especially for myself, and suspend it under the mildest sun, a world where I would have nothing but lovely little children, and these little things I would never suffer to grow up, but only to play eternally

If a seraph were worthy of heaven, or his golden pinions drooped, I would send him to dwell for awhile in my happy infant world, and no angel, so long as he saw their innocence, could lose his own.

Jean Paul.

you

LETTER TO A NEW BORN CHILD.

OU are heartily welcome, my dear little cousin, into this unquiet world; long may you continue in it in all the happiness it can give, and bestow enough on all your friends, to answer fully the impatience with which you have been expected. May you grow up to have every accomplishment that your good friend, the Bishop of Derry, can already imagine in you; and in the meantime, may you have a nurse with a tuneable voice, who may not talk an immoderate deal of nonsense to you. You are at present, my dear, in a very philosophic disposition; the gaieties and follies of life have no attraction for you; its sorrows you kindly commiserate! but, however, do not suffer them to disturb your slumbers, and find charms in nothing but harmony and repose. You have as yet contracted no partialities, are entirely ignorant of party distinctions, and look with a perfect indifference on all human splendor. You have an absolute dislike to the vanities of dress; and are likely for many months, to observe the Bishop of Bristol's first rule of conversation, Silence, though tempted to transgress it by the novelty and strangeness of all objects around you. As you advance further in life this philosophic temper will, by degrees, wear off; the first object of your admiration will probably be the candle, and thence (as we all of us do) you will contract a taste for the gaudy and the

*Secker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.