But in his eyes a mist unwonted rises,

And for a moment clear,

Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises
And passes in a tear.

Some boyish vision of his Eastern village,

Of uneventful toil,

Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage

Above a peaceful soil.

Bret Harte.

PART VIII.

Home and Fireside.

AT HOME.

WHERE burns the fireside brightest,
Cheering the social breast?
Where beats the fond heart lightest,
Its humblest hopes possessed?
Where is the hour of sadness,

With meek-eyed patience borne,
Worth more than those of gladness,
Which mirth's gay cheeks adorn?
Pleasure is marked by fleetness,
To those who ever roam;

While grief itself has sweetness
At home-sweet home.

Bernard BARTON

FORTUNE MY FOE.

"AIM not too high at things beyond thy reach,"
Nor give the rein to reckless thought or speech.
Is it not better all thy life to bide
Lord of thyself, than all the earth beside?

Thus if high Fortune far from thee take wing,
Why shouldst thou envy counsellor or king?
Purple or homespun, wherefore make ado
What coat may cover, if the heart be true?

Then, if at last thou gather wealth at will,
Thou most shalt honor Him who grants it still;
Since he who best doth poverty endure,

Should prove, when rich, best brother to the poor.
The Spectator.
ALFRED PERCIVAL GRAVES.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

'TIS home where'er the heart is, Where'er its loved ones dwell, In cities or in cottages,

Thronged haunts or mossy dell. The heart's a rover ever,

And thus, on wave and wild, The maiden with her lover walks, The mother with her child.

'T is bright where'er the heart is;
Its fairy spell can bring
Fresh fountains to the wilderness,
And to the desert spring.
Green isles are in the ocean
O'er which affection glides,
A haven on each sunny shore,
When love's the sun that guides.

'Tis free where'er the heart is;
Nor chains nor dungeons dim

May check the mind's aspiring thought,
The spirit's pealing hymn.

The heart gives life its beauty,

Its glory, and its powers;

'Tis sunlight to its rippling stream,

And soft dew to its flowers.

HOME-COMING.

WHEN brothers leave the old hearthstone

And go, each one, a separate way,

We think, as we go on alone

Along our pathway, day by day,
Of olden scenes and faces dear,

Of voices that we miss so much;
And memory brings the absent near,
Until we almost feel the touch
Of loving hands, and hear once more
The dear old voices ringing out,
As in that happy time of yore,

Ere life had caught a shade of doubt.

If you should place against your ear
The shell you plundered from the sea,
Down in its hidden heart you'd hear
A low and tender melody;

A murmur of the restless tide,

A yearning born of memory;
And though its yearnings be denied,
The shell keeps singing of the sea.
And sometimes when old memories throng
Like ghosts the memories of our soul,
We feel the yearning, deep and strong,
A longing we cannot control,
To lay our care and business by,
And seek the old familiar ways,

And cross home's threshold, and sit down
With comrades of our earlier days.

For though our paths are sundered wide,
We feel that we are brothers yet,
And by and by we turn aside.

From hurrying care and worldly fret,
And each one wanders back to meet
His brother by the hearth of home;
I think the meeting is more sweet

Because so far and wide we roam.
We cross the lengthening bridge of years,
Meet outstretched hands and faces true;
The silent eloquence of tears

Speaks welcome that no words can do.

But ah, the meeting holds regret !
The sad, sad story, often told,
Of hands that ours have often met,
Close folded under churchyard mould;

Of eyes that smiled into our own,

Closed in the dreamless sleep of God;

A sweeter rest was never known

Than theirs, beneath the grave's white sod.

A tender thought for them to-night,

A tribute tear from memory;

Beneath their covering of white

Sweet may their dreamless slumber be.

A SONG FOR THE HOT WINDS.

OH for a breath o' the moorlands,
A whiff o' the caller air!

For the smell o' the flowerin' heather
My very heart is sair.

Oh for the sound o' the burnies
That whimple to the sea;

For the sight o' the browning bracken
On the hillside waving free!

Oh for the blue lochs cradled
In the arms o' mountains gray,

That smile as they shadow the drifting clouds
A' the bonny summer day!

Oh for the tops o' mountains
White wi' eternal snaw;

For the mists that drift across the lift;
For the strong east winds that blaw!

I am sick o' the blazing sunshine
That burns through the weary hours,
O' the gaudy birds singing never a song,
O' beautiful scentless flowers.

I wud gie a' the southern glory
For a taste o' a good saut wind,
Wi' a road ower the bonny sea before,
And a track o' foam behind.

Auld Scotland may be rugged,

Her mountains stern and bare;
But, oh for a breath o' her moorlands,
A whiff o' her caller air!

HARRIET MILLER DAVIDSON.

Adelaide, Australia, Jan. 13, 1872.

THE SERMON IN A STOCKING.

THE supper is over, the hearth is swept,
And in the wood-fire's glow

The children cluster to hear a tale

Of that time so long ago,

When grandmamma's hair was golden brown,

And the warm blood came and went

O'er the face that could scarce have been sweeter then

Than now in its rich content.

The face is wrinkled and careworn now,

And the golden hair is gray;

But the light that shone in the young girl's eyes

Has never gone away.

And her needles catch the fire's light

As in and out they go,

With the clicking music that grandma loves,

Shaping the stocking's toe.