THE waters purled, the waters swelled, A fisher sat near by, And earnestly his line beheld With tranquil heart and eye; And while he sits and watches there, He sees the waves divide, And, lo! a maid, with glistening hair, Springs from the troubled tide. She sang to him, she spake to him, "Why lur'st thou from below, In cruel mood, my tender brood, To die in day's fierce glow ? Ah! didst thou know how sweetly there The little fishes dwell, Thou wouldst come down their lot to share, And be forever well. "Bathes not the smiling sun at nightThe moon too- in the waves ? THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM. "Did you admire my lamp," quoth he, "As much as I your minstrelsy, WILLIAM Cowper. THE MILKMAID. A MILKMAID, who poised a full pail on her head, Thus mused on her prospects in life, it is said: "Let me see, I should think that this milk will procure One hundred good eggs, or fourscore, to be sure. "Well then, stop a bit, it must not be forgotten, Of these some may die, we 'll suppose seventeen, Seventeen not so many, say ten at the most, Which will leave fifty chickens to boil or to roast. "But then there's their barley: how much will they need? Why, they take but one grain at a time when they feed, So that's a mere trifle; now then, let us see, A temple for ages entombed, to disclose, - The roll which this reptile's long history records, Half opened the other, but could not tell why; The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould, Lying loose on a ponderous stone. Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne, A toad has been sitting more years than is known; And strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems The world standing still while he's dreaming his dreams, Does this wonderful toad, in his cheerful abode In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown. Down deep in the hollow, from morning till night, Turned a ruined old mill-wheel around: Long years have passed by since its bed became dry, And the trees grow so close, scarce a glimpse of the sky Is seen in the hollow, so dark and so damp, Where the glow-worm at noonday is trimming his lamp, And hardly a sound from the thicket around, Where the rabbit and squirrel leap over the ground, Is heard by the toad in his spacious abode In the innermost heart of that ponderous stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown. Down deep in that hollow the bees never come, The shade is too black for a flower; And jewel-winged birds, with their musical hum, Never flash in the night of that bower; But the cold-blooded snake, in the edge of the brake, Lies amid the rank grass halfasleep, halfawake; And the ashen-white snail, with the slime in its trail, Moves wearily on like a life's tedious tale, Yet disturbs not the toad in his spacious abode, In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone, By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown. Down deep in a hollow some wiseacres sit Like the toad in his cell in the stone; Around them in daylight the blind owlets flit, And their creeds are with ivy o'ergrown ;Their streams may go dry, and the wheels cease to ply, And their glimpses be few of the sun and the sky, Still they hug to their breast every time-hon ored guest, And slumber and doze in inglorious rest; For no progress they find in the wide sphere of mind, And the world's standing still with all of their | Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce. kind; Contented to dwell deep down in the well, Or move like the snail in the crust of his shell, Or live like the toad in his narrow abode, With their souls closely wedged in a thick wall of stone, By further experiments (no matter how) By the gray weeds of prejudice rankly o'ergrown. A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale, MRS. R. S. NICHOLS. THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES. A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er, Perhaps it was only by patience and care, SCALES. "What were they?" you ask. You shall pres- With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight, ently see; These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea. Together with articles small or immense, From mountains or planets to atoms of sense. Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay, The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire, One time he put in Alexander the Great, And though clad in armor from sandals to crown, A long row of almshouses, amply endowed When the former sprang up with so strong a re I cannot trust your counsel, friend, Said Satan, "Near the throne of God, Angels of light, to us 't was given Not wholly lost is that first love, Roaming across a continent, But never quite forgets the day I fell, 't is true-O, ask not why, For how can I thy words believe, When even God thou didst deceive? our sin A sea of lies art thou, "Not so," said Satan, "I serve God, In tempting I both bless and curse, Tell then the truth, for well I know Loud laughed the fiend. "You know me well, If you had missed your prayer, I knew And such repentance would have been A good, outweighing far the sin. OUR revels now are ended. These our actors, SHAKESPEARE. |