Perhaps your eyes may grow more bright

As childhood's hues depart;

You may be lovelier to the sight,

And dearer to the heart;
You may be sinless still, and see
This earth still green and gay;
But what you are you will not be,
Laugh on, laugh on, to-day!

V.

O'er me have many winters crept,

With less of grief than joy;

But I have learned, and toiled, and wept.- › I am no more a boy!

I've never had the gout, 'tis true,
My hair is hardly gray;

But now I cannot laugh like you;

Laugh on, laugh on, to-day!

VI.

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

I once could run as blithe 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!

EXERCISE XLVII.

ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE is an Episcopal clergyman, and was born at Mendham, in New Jersey, in the year 1818. He is a lyric poet of remarkable merit, and writes chiefly on religious themes. The following is one of his best productions.

The first dear thing that I ever loved,

Was a mother's gentle eye,

That smiled, as I woke on the dreamy couch

That cradled my infancy.

I never forget the joyous thrill

That smile in my spirit stirred,

Nor how it could charm me against my will,

Till I laughed like a joyous bird.

II.

And the next fair thing that ever I loved,

Was a bunch of summer flowers,

With odors, and hues, and loveliness,
Fresh as from Eden's bowers.

I never can find such hues again,
Nor smell such sweet perfume;
And, if there be odors as sweet as then

'Tis I that have lost the bloom.

III.

And the next dear thing that ever I loved, Was a fawn-like little maid,

Half pleased, half awed by the frolic boy That tortured her doll, and played:

I never can see the gossamer

Which rude, rough zephyrs tease,
But I think how I tossed her flossy locks
With my whirling bonnet's breeze.

IV.

And the next good thing that ever I loved,

Was a bow-kite in the sky;

And a little boat on the brooklet's surf,

And a dog for my company;

And a jingling hoop, with many a bound

To my measured strike and true; And a rocket sent up to the firmament,

When Even was out so blue.

V.

And the next fair thing I was fond to love, Was a field of wavy grain,

Where the reapers mowed; or a ship in sail
On the billowy, billowy main:

And the next was a fiery prancing horse
That I felt like a man to stride;

And the next was a beautiful sailing-boat
With a helm it was hard to guide.

VI.

And the next dear thing I was fond to love,
Is tenderer far to tell;

"Twas a voice, and a hand, and gentle eye

That dazzled me with its spell:

And the loveliest things I had loved before,
Were only the landscape now,

On the canvas bright where I pictured her,
In the glow of my early vow

VII.

And the next good thing I was fain to love,
Was to sit in my cell alone,

Musing o'er all these lovely things,

Forever, forever flown.

Then out I walked in the forest free,

Where wantoned the autumn wind,
And the colored boughs swung shiveringly,
In harmony with my mind.

VIII.

And a spirit was on me that next I loved,
That ruleth my spirit still,

And maketh me murmur these sing-song words,

Albeit against my will.

And I walked the woods till the winter came,

And then did I love the snow;

And I heard the gales, through the wild wood aisles, Like the LORD's own organ blow.

IX.

And the bush I had loved in my greenwood walk,

I saw it afar away,

Surpliced with snows, like the bending priest

That kneels in the church to pray:

And I thought of the vaulted fane, and high,
Where I stood when a little child,
Awed by the lauds sung thrillingly,
And the anthems undefiled.

X.

And again to the vaulted church I went,
And I heard the same sweet prayers,
And the same full organ-peals upsent,
And the same soft soothing airs;

And I felt in my spirit so drear and strange

To think of the race I ran,

That I loved the lone thing that knew no change, In the soul of the boy and man.

That I may dwell in His temple blest,

As long as my life shall be;

And the beauty fair of the LORD of HOSTS,
In the home of His glory see.