Would the bright eyes of our darling

Catch the frown upon our brow?
Would the print of rosy fingers
Vex us then as they do now?

Ah, these little ice-cold fingers,
How they point our memories back
To the hasty words and actions
Strewn along our backward track!
How those little hands remind us,
As in snowy grace they lie,
Not to scatter thorns, but roses,
For our reaping by and by.

Strange we never prize the music,

Till the sweet-voiced bird has flown; Strange that we should slight the violets Till the lovely flowers are gone; Strange that summer skies and sunshine Never seem one-half so fair

As when winter's snowy pinions

Shake their white down in the air!

Lips from which the seal of silence
None but God can roll away,
Never blossomed in such beauty
As adorns the mouth to-day,
And sweet words that freight our memory
With their beautiful perfume,

Come to us in sweeter accents,
Through the portals of the tomb.

Let us gather up the sunbeams,
Lying all around our path;

Let us keep the wheat and roses,

Casting out the thorns and chaff;
Let us find our sweetest comfort
In the blessing of to-day,
With a patient hand removing
All the briers from our way.

AS

BE STRONG.

S the rock in the ocean, the pine on the plain,

As the mountain whose summit is deluged in vain, As the Good over Evil, the Right over Wrong,

( thou frail human hearted, look up and be strong!

Where the hand of the tyrant oppresseth the low,
Where treachery turneth the friend into foe,
Where law is a fable, and truth but a song,
Come up to the contest, O man! and be strong

Where Slander has ventured his venomous tongue,
And the heart of its victim in agony wrung,

Where Self, under masque, courts corruption and

wrong,

Come thou to the rescue, be brave and be strong!

What matter if clouds dim the silvery light?
Day smiles at the death of the gloomiest night.

The blue lies beyond, though the clouds hover long,
Light comes with the breaking; then hope and be

strong.

Be strong for humanity, strong for thyself,

And strong, lest thy heart-strings be woven of pelf, Lest thy soul, soul-forgetting, turn earthward too long, As Faith looks to Heaven, O! look thou and be strong CORA M. EAGER.

ANGELS.

N this dim world of clouding cares
We rarely know, till 'wildered eyes
See white wings less'ning up the skies,
The angels with us unawares.

GERALD MASSEY

THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF.

"CALL my brother back to me,
I cannot play alone!

The summer comes with flower and bee-
Where is my brother gone?

"The butterfly is glancing bright
Across the sunbeam's track,

I care not now to chase its flight,
O call my brother back!

"The flowers run wild-the flowers we sowed
Around our garden tree!

Our vine is drooping with its load

O call him back to me!"