Pulsations of the feebly-fluttering heart, While his kind words, soft murmuring and low, Essayed to calm the mourner's pain and smart. He was to all a father, brother, friend; Their joys were his, their sorrows were his own. He sleeps in peace where yonder willows bend Above the violets that kiss the stone. Horace S. Keller, in N. Y. Sun. JUNE. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grasses and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT. Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, The night is dark, and I am far from home- Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou I loved to choose and see my path; but now I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till And with the morn those angel faces smile Cardinal John Henry) Newman. THE BIBLE MY MOTHER GAVE ME. Give me that grand old Volume, the gift of a mother's love, Tho' the spirit that first taught me has winged its flight above. Yet, with no legacy but this, she has left me wealth untold, Yea, mightier than earth's riches, or the wealth of Ophir's gold. When a child, I've kneeled beside her, in our dear old cottage home, And listened to her reading from that prized and cherished tome. As with low and gentle cadence, and a meek and reverent mien, God's word fell from her trembling lips like a presence felt and seen. Solemn and sweet the counsels that spring from its open page, Written with all the fervor and zeal of the prophet age; Full of the inspiration of the holy bards who trod, Caring not for the scoffer's scorn, if they gained a soul to God. Men who in mind were God-like, and have left on its blazoned scroll Food for all coming ages in its manna of the soul; "Who, through long days of anguish, and nights devoid of ease," Still wrote with the burning pen of faith its higher mys teries. |