It stands in the Comitium,1 How valiantly he kept the bridge * And in the nights of winter, When the cold north winds blow, When the oldest cask is open'd, When the chestnuts glow in the embers, When young and old in circle Around the firebrands close; When the girls are weaving baskets, When the goodman mends his armour, 'The hall in the Forum in which the assemblies of the people were held, for electing magistrates and all the public officers. The three beautiful columns, usually called those of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, are now considered to have been part of the Comitium. A mountain near Rome. With weeping and with laughter How well Horatius kept the bridge MACAULAY. A MOTHER'S LOVE. A MOTHER'S Love,-how sweet the name ! To bless a heart of earthly mould; To bring a helpless babe to light, Its weakness in her arms to bear; Feed it from love's own fountain there, Then while it slumbers watch its breath, As if to guard from instant death; To mark its growth from day to day, Catch from its eye the earliest ray To smile and listen while it talks, And can a Mother's Love grow cold? Ten thousand voices answer "No!" The infant, rear'd alone for earth, A parent's heart may prove a snare; Her hand may lead, with gentlest care, Blest infant! whom his mother taught And pour'd upon his dawning thought Time is eternity begun : Behold that Mother's Love. 1 1 2 Tim. 1. 5., iii. 14, 15. Blest Mother! who, in wisdom's path, Thus taught her son to flee the wrath, Ah! youth, like him enjoy your prime, Taught by that Mother's Love. That Mother's Love! - how sweet the name! This was that Mother's Love! J. MONTGOMERY. SONG OF THE STARS. WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke, And the empty realms of darkness and death And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame And this was the song the bright ones sung: "Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, The fair blue fields that before us lie, Each sun with the worlds that round him roll, "For the Source of glory uncovers his face, "Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar, In the infinite azure, star after star, How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass! How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass! And the path of the gentle winds is seen, Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean. "And see where the brighter day-beams pour, How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower; And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues, Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews; And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground, With her shadowy cone the night goes round! "Away, away! in our blossoming bowers, "Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres, To weave the dance that measures the years ; |