THOU mayest smile, perchance, as mothers smile
On sobbing children, seeing, all the while,
How soon will pass away the endless grief,
How soon will come the gladness and relief;
But if Thou smilest, yet Thy sympathy
Measures my grief by what it is to me.
And not the less Thy love doth understand,
And not the less, with tender, pitying hand,
Thou wipest all my tears, and the sad face
Doth cherish to a smile in Thy embrace,
Until the pain is gone, and Thou dost say,'
'Go now, my child, and work for me to-day.'

It is the secret sympathy,

The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.-Scott.

3266. SYMPATHY: seldom found.

OH! ask not, hope not thou too much
Of sympathy below;

Few are the hearts whence one same touch

Bids the sweet fountain flow.-Mrs Hemans.

3267. TACT. Importance of

WHAT boots it thy virtue,
What profit thy parts,
While one thing thou lackest-
The art of all arts?
The only credentials,

Passport to success,
Opens castle and parlour-
Address, man, address.
Church, market, and tavern,
Bed and board it will sway;
It has no to-morrow;

It ends with to-day.-Emerson.

3268. TALENTS: apart from virtue.
TALENTS angel-bright,

If wanting worth, are shining instruments,
In false ambition's hand, to finish faults
Illustrious, and give infamy renown.-Young.

3269. TALENTS. Parable of

THERE went a man from home: and to his neighbours twain

He gave to keep for him two sacks of golden grain. Deep in his cellar one the precious charge conceal'd; And forth the other went and strew'd it in the field. The man returns at last-asks of the first his sack: 'Here, take it; 'tis the same; thou hast it safely back.'

Unharm'd it shows without, but when he would explore

His sack's recesses, corn there finds he now no more:
One-half of all therein proves rotten and decay'd,
Upon the other half have worms and mildew prey'd.
The putrid heap to him in ire he doth return;
And of the other asks, 'Where is my sack of corn?'
Who answer'd, 'Come with me, behold how it has
sped,'

And took and show'd him fields where waving harvests spread.

A NIGHTINGALE, that all day long
Had cheer'd the village with his song,
Nor yet at eve his note suspended,
Nor yet when eventide was ended,
Began to feel-as well he might—
The keen demands of appetite;
When, looking eagerly around,
He spied, far off, upon the ground,
A something shining in the dark,
And knew the glow-worm by his spark ;
So, stooping down from hawthorn top,
He thought to put him in his crop.
The worm, aware of his intent,
Harangued him thus, quite eloquent :
'Did you admire my lamp,' quoth he,
'As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song;
For 'twas the self-same power Divine
Taught you to sing and me to shine;
That you with music, I with light,
Might beautify and cheer the night.'
The songster heard his short oration,
And, warbling out his approbation,
Released him, as my story tells,

And found a supper somewhere else.-Cowper.

3271. TALENTS: rightly used.

MAY I remember, that to Thee

Whate'er I have I owe;
And back in gratitude from me
May all Thy bounties flow.

Thy gifts are only then enjoy'd,

When used as talents lent; Those talents only well employ'd, When in Thy service spent.

3272. TALK. Careless

UNLESS thou find occasion, hold thy tongue; Thyself or others careless talk may wrong. Denham.

3273. TALKERS.

TALKERS are no good doers: be assured
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
Shakespeare.

3274. TALKING. Constrained

THE circle form'd, we sit in silent state,
Like figures drawn upon a dial plate;

Yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am, uttered softly, show
Every five minutes how the minutes go;

Each individual suffering a constraint,
Poetry may, but colours cannot paint;
As if in close committee on the sky,:
Reports it hot or cold, or wet or dry;
And finds a changing clime a happy source
Of wise reflection, and well-timed discourse.
We next inquire, but softly and by stealth,
Like conservators of the public health,
Of epidemic throats, if such there are,

And coughs and rheums, and phthisic, and catarrh.
That theme exhausted, a wide chasm ensues,
Fill'd up at last with interesting news,

Who danced with whom, and who are like to wed,
And who is hang'd, and who is brought to bed;
But fear to call a more important cause,
As if 'twere treason against English laws.
The visit paid, with ecstasy we come,
As from a seven years' transportation, home,
And there resume an unembarrass'd brow,
Recovering what we lost, we know not how,
The faculties that seem'd reduced to nought,
Expression and the privilege of thought.—Couper.

3275. TALKING. Dignity of

SPEECH is the golden harvest that followeth the flowering of thought;

Yet oftentimes runneth it to husk, and the grains be

wither'd and scanty:

Speech is reason's brother, and a kingly perogative

of man,

That likeneth him to his Maker, who spake, and it was done :

Spirit may mingle with spirit, but sense requireth a symbol;

And speech is the body of a thought, without which it were not seen.- -Tupper.

3276. TASTE. Innate

NOT content With every food of life to nourish man, By kind illusions of the wondering sense, Thou makest all Nature beauty to his eye,