Stand in order, and listen

To the holiest page of prayer;

Let every foot be quiet,

Every head be bare:

The soft trade-wind is lifting
A hundred locks of hair.

Our captain reads the service

(A little spray on his cheeks) The grand old words of burial, And the trust a true heart seeks: "We therefore commit his body

To the deep;" and, as he speaks,

Launched from the weather railing,
Swift as the eye can mark,
The ghastly, spotted hammock
Plunges away from the shark,
Down a thousand fathoms-

Down into the dark.

A thousand summers and winters
The stormy gulf shall roll

High o'er his canvas coffin;

But silence to doubt and dole: There's a quiet harbor somewhere For the poor aweary soul.

Free the fettered engine;

Speed the tireless shaft; Loose to'gallant and topsail, The breeze is fair abaft.

Blue sea all around us,

Blue sky bright o'erhead; Every man to his duty

We have buried our dead.

SONG OF THE WOOD THRUSH.

INNIS CARLETON.

Where low the soft blue shadows rest,
O'er cedars dense and pine trees tall,
The shy wood thrush has built her nest,
And you may hear the flute-like call:
O-ree-al, de-al, de-al.

Faintly it sounds, as far away,

From cool recess of shadows dim,
Each dewy eve and morning gray,
Then melts beyond the lakelet's rim:
O-ree-al, de-al, de-al.

Now near and full the carol falls,
In cadence rich, of sounds so rare,
That all the wooded aisles it fills

And soars in deeps of upper air:
O-ree-al, de-al, de-al.

Plaintive and deep it swells and floats
Far in the silence of its dells,
Then higher rise the silvery notes,
Like distant calling of clear bells:
O-ree-al, de-al, de-al.

So pure a note of utter calm,

O bird from skies of Eden long!

What was thy voice, amid its palms,
When echoed first thy morning song?
O-ree-al, de-al, de-al.

BOB ORATOHET'S CHRISTMAS DINNER.

DICKENS.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have, though, a goose-the rarest of all birds, a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course; and, in truth, it was something very like it

in that house. Mrs. Cratchet made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchets set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped.

At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a deathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchet, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchets, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried "Hurrah!"

There never was such a goose! Bob said he didn't believe there was ever such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchet said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchets, in particular, were steeped in sage and onions to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchet left the room alone-too nervous to hear witnesses-to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it while they were merry with the goosea supposition at which the two young Cratchets became livid. All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundresses next door to that! That was the pudflushed, but smiling

ding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchet entered,

proudly, with the pudding, like a speckled cannon ball, so hard and

firm; blazing in a nalf a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchet said, and calmly, too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchet since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchet said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour.

Everbody had something to say about it; but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchet would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchet family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchet called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchet's elbow stood the family display of glass, two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed

"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us !" Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all,

GOLDEN HAIR.

ROYALE.

Golden Hair sat on Grandfather's knee,
Dear little Golden Hair! tired was she,
All day busy, as busy could be.

Up in the morning as soon as 'twas light;
Out with the birds and butterflies bright;
Flitting about till coming of night.

Grandfather toyed with the curls on her head.
"What has my baby been doing," he said,
"Since she arose, with the sun, from her bed ?"

"Pitty much," answered the sweet little one;
"I cannot tell, much things have I done,
Played with dolly, and feeded my bun;

"And I have jumped with my little jump-rope,
And then I made out of water and soap
Bufittle worlds-Mamma's castles of hope.

"Then I have readed in my picture-book;
And little Bella and I went to look

For some smooth stones by the side of the brook.
"Then I comed home-and eated my tea,
And I climbed up to my Grandpapa's knee.
I'm-jes-as-tired-as-tired-can-be!"

We are but children! the things that we do
Are as sports of a babe to the Infinite view,
That sees all our weakness and pities it, too.

God grant that when night overshadows our way,
And we shall be called to account for the day,
He may find it as guileless as Golden Hair's play!

And oh! when a-weary, may we be so blest
As to sink like an innocent child to our rest,
And feel ourselves clasped to the Infinite breast.

TWO BUMBLEBEES.

GEORGE COOPER.

Two bumblebees, in coats of gold,

Once met upon a rose. I'm told,

And searched its sweetness, fold on fold.