HE THE DEAD BOY. E crossed the sill; she pointed to the bed; Lit with the solemn and unearthly grace In his thin hands were clasped, his breast above, Had linked the sufferer-save a mother's love. William Allen Butler. No THE PRATTLE OF CHILDREN. man knows, but he that loves his children, how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of these dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocences, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society. Jeremy Taylor-Sermon xviii. * WHERE like we to see presumption shown? In children for the world's their own! H, blessed indeed are little children! Mortals do not un derstand half they owe them; for the good they do us is a spiritual gift, and few perceive how it intertwines the mystery of life. They form a ladder of garlands on which the angels descend to our souls; and without them, such communications would be utterly lost. L. M. Child. IN N this dim world of clouding cares Gerald Massey. ILLUSIONS. WHEN the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into Nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune. Emerson. A TORN jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child. Longfellow IN THE CONTRAST. the parlor, singing, playing, Round me like a sunbeam straying, All her life with joy o'erladen, Is a radiant little maiden. Constant love, her cares beguiling, In the street, where storms are sighing, Poor lost lamb! with plaintive bleating All my sympathy entreating. No home's holy loves enfold her, And the voices that should guide her Then I know that radiant maiden Plummer. THE MOTHER, EVEN IN DEATH. THE HE end was drawing on; the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord was fast being loosed-that animula blandula, vagula, hospes, comesque, was about to flee. The body and soul, companions for sixty years, were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking alone through the valley of that shadow into which one day we must all enter; and yet she was not alone, for we all know whose rod and staff were comforting her. One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed, and taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it eagerly to her breast, to the right side. We could see her eyes, bright with surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her wasted, dying look, keen and yet vague; her immense love: and then she rocked back and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her infinite fondness. "Preserve me!" groaned her husband, giving way. "Wae's me, doctor; I declare she's thinking it's that bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and she's in the Kingdom forty years and mair." It was plainly true; the pain in the breast telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of a breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more they were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie on her bosom. This was the close-she sank rapidly; the delirium left her. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she said, "James." He came close to her, and lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, then to her husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes, composed herself, and passed gently away. John Brown. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. BETWEEN the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, I hear in the chamber above me The sound of a door that is opened, From my study I see in the lamp-light, A whisper, and then a silence; A sudden rush from the stairway, A sudden raid from the hall! G* |