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VI.

I used to have as glad a face,
As shadowless a brow;

I once could run as blythe a race
As you are running now;
But never mind how I behave,
Don't interrupt your play,

And though I look so very grave,
Laugh on, laugh on, to-day!

A SCENE IN A PARK.

LURK we behind these huddled thorns awhile!
Hast thou on earth a fairer picture seen

Than that we catch their latticed boughs between?
The slanting sunshine turns its warmest smile
Upon a shelving bank, whose loamy soil,
Crumbling from underneath the herbage green,
Glows in fine unison with the tint serene
Of fern in sunburnt patches. As a foil
To the bright creatures under it, yon oak
Protrudes a mass of shade, which falls not on
The sleek and dappled sides of those three deer.
Ah! you have stirred - they flee the charm is gone :
For Nature's loveliest combinations brook

No tampering, at a touch, they disappear!

RUTH TO HER MOTHER.

EXTRACTED FROM AN ALBUM IN DEVONSHIRE.

I.

I will not, cannot leave thee; every hope to me is

dead,

But the hope to smooth the pillow for an aged parent's

head!

Oh! bid me not depart from thee;-to wander by thy

side

Is now my only joy and wish,-my pleasure and my pride.

II.

Bid me not seek another lord, another land or home;
I am the staff unto thy feet, wherever they may roam;
The scanty meal, the houseless head, no terrors have

for me,

So I may watch, and hunger, my mother dear, by thee.

Y

III.

I would not leave thee for the wealth of Fortune's

richest smile;

Such lot were pain and grief to me, if thou wert poor the while :

I would not leave thee, though the cloud that broods upon thy brow

Were of a deeper, deadlier gloom, than I behold it now.

IV.

Thou say'st that thou art childless now,-thou hast no

other son

To be a link of love to us, to bind our souls in one ;Oh! who should smile with Chilion's smile, or speak with Chilion's tone,

But her whose grief for Chilion was as bitter as thine own!

V.

By the joy we both remember, by the loss we both lament,

Bid me not serve my people's gods, nor seek my father's

tent;

I am an alien at their hearth, a stranger at their shrine, I have no kindred now but thee, I know no God but

thine!

VI.

And He will still be with us, in our smiles and in our

tears;

In the weakness of my youth, and in the sadness of thy

years;

To cheer the darkness of our doom, how dark soe'er

it be,

And bless the grateful love with which my spirit clings

to thee.

M. G. T.

STANZAS.

'Tis sad when sickness wrings the frame,
When dear ones look distrust and blame,
And worldly cares are pressing still,
And heaven is dark, and earth is chill.

But oh! it is a deeper pain,

To know our best resolves are vain ;
Our cold, half-love of Truth and Right,
Too weak to cheer us in the fight!

Ye blessed ones! in might come down,
And make our feeble hearts your own;
To know that you are ours, shall be
A joy in utterest misery!

LEISURE AND LOVE.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD.

I.

SOOTH 't were a pleasant life to lead,
With nothing in the world to do,
But just to blow a shepherd's reed
The silent seasons through ;—
And just to drive a flock to feed,-
Sheep, quiet, fond, and few!

II.

Pleasant to breathe beside a brook,

And count the bubbles-love-worlds- there;

To muse within some minstrel's book,

Or watch the haunted air;

To slumber in some leafy nook,—

Or-idle anywhere.

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