Or the fragile, pallid mother, seeing in that starry

eye

God's eternal, fadeless garden, God's wide sunshine and His sky,

Hers through painless, endless ages, bright'ning through immensity?

None may know-the busy workings of the brain remain untold,

But the loving deed-the outgrowth-brings us lessons manifold.

Smiles and frowns—a look—a flower growing by the common way,

Trifles born with every hour make the sum of life's poor day,

And the jewels that we garner are the tears we wipe away.

Scribner's Monthly.

WASHINGTON.

Ir matters very little what spot may have been the birthplace of Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the atmosphere that it cleared! How bright, on the brow of the firmament, was the planet which it revealed to us!

In the production of Washington, it seems as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some singular qualification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was temperate, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master.

As a general he marshalled the farmer into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a statesman he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and statesman he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason, for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it.

If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who like

Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might almost be said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to her philosophy. The temptations of earth could not seduce her patriotism. Charles Phillips.

"PERSEVERE."

ROBERT, the Bruce, in the dungeon stood

Waiting the hour of doom;

Behind him the Palace of Holyrood,

Before him, a nameless tomb.

And the foam on his lip was flecked with red,
As away to the past his memory sped,
Upcalling the day of his great renown
When he won and he wore the Scottish crown;
Yet come there shadow, or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"I have sat on the royal seat of Scone,'

""

He muttered, below his breath; "It's a luckless change, from a kingly throne

To a felon's shameful death."

And he clinched his hand in his despair,

And he struck at the shapes that were gathering there

Pacing his cell in impatient rage,

As a new-caught lion paces his cage.

Oh, were it my fate to yield up my life

At the head of my liegemen all !
In the foremost shock of the battle-strife
Breaking my country's thrall,

I'd welcome death from the foeman's steel,
Breathing a prayer for old Scotland's weal;
But here, where no pitying heart is nigh,
By a loathsome hand, it is hard to die.

"Time and again have I fronted the pride Of the tyrant's vast array.

But only to see, on the crimson tide,

My hopes swept far away.

Now a landless chief, and a crownless king, On the broad, broad earth not a living thing To keep me court, save yon insect small Striving to reach from wall to wall.

"Work-work as a fool, as I have done,
To the loss of your time and pain-
The space is too wide to be bridged across,
You but waste your strength in vain.”
And Bruce for the moment forgot his grief,
His soul now filled with the same belief,
That howsoever the issue went,
For evil or good was the omen sent.

As a gambler watches his turning card
On which his all is staked ;

As a mother waits for the hopeful word
For which her soul has ached;

It was thus Bruce watched, with every sense
Centred alone in that look intense;

All rigid he stood with unuttered breath,
Now white, now red, but still as death.

Six several times the creature tried,

When at the seventh: "See-see!

He has spanned it over," the captive cried—
"Lo! a bridge of hope to me;

Thee, God, I thank-for this lesson here
Has tutored my soul to Persevere !"

And it served him well, for ere long he wore
In freedom the Scottish crown once more;
And come there shadow, or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.
John Brougham.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

THIS is the ship of pearl which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main:

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purple wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare;

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell

Where its dim-dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,