EVENING PRAYER AT A GIRLS' SCHOOL. 299 And take the thought of this calm vesper time, With its low murmuring sounds and silvery light, On through the dark days fading from their prime, As a sweet dew to keep your souls from blight. Earth will forsake, oh! happy to have given The unbroken heart's first fragrance unto Heaven! COURSE OF TIME. POLLOCK. [EXTRACT.] . . . And who Shall tell what strange variety of bliss Burst on the infant soul, when first it looked All new! when thought awoke, thought never more Nor happy only, but the cause of joy, The mother's tender heart, while round her hung Than every ornament of costliest hue! And who hath not been ravished, as she passed Like Luna, with her daughters of the sky, All who had hearts, here pleasure found; and oft And watched them run and crop the tempting flower, Which oft, unasked, they brought me, and bestowed Of praise, and answered curious questions, put And heard their observations strange and new, Roses that bathe about the well of life, Young loves, young hopes, dancing on morning's cheek, Gems leaping in the coronet of love! So beautiful, so full of life, they seemed THE DYING BOY. ANONYMOUS. Ir must be sweet in childhood, to give back And when the eighth came round and called him out To revel in its light, he turned away, And sought his chamber, to lie down and die. 'T was night-he summoned his accustomed friends, And, in this wise, bestowed his last bequest: "Mother, I'm dying now There is deep suffocation in my breast, |