And you'll only think, dear mother,

I have been out at play,

And have gone to sleep, beneath a tree, This sultry summer day.

THE CHILDLESS.

WHEN I think upon the childless,
How I sorrow for the gloom
That pervades the silent chambers
Of the still and joyless home!
They do not hear the gleesome sound
Of infant voices sweet,
The gush of fairy laughter,
Or the tread of tiny feet.

Their hand the little shining head

Can never fondly press,

They never on the coral lip

Imprint a warm caress;

They never hear a lisping tongue
Pronounce their name in prayer,
Or watch beside the cradle

Of a slumberer calm and fair.

Their age is dull and lonely;

In the solemn hour of death No fond and weeping offspring Receive the parting breath ; And they feel the hollow nothingness

Of honors, lands, and name,

Knowing that those who love them not The heritage must claim.

Thus I sorrowed for the childless;
But erelong, in happier mood,
I thought how Providence o'errules
Each earthly thing for good.
With the pleasures of the parent
Their lot I had compared,

But dwelt not on the trials

And the troubles they were spared.

They know not what it is to stand

An infant sufferer by,

To mark the crimson-fevered cheek,
The bright and restless eye;
And feel that in that feeble breast,
That form of fragile make,

Their happiness is garnered up,

Their earthly hopes at stake.

They know not, as the mind unfolds,

How hard it is to win

The little heart to cling to good,

And shun the ways of sin:
They reck not of the awful charge,
Amid a world of strife,

To train a tenant for the skies,
An heir of endless life.

They see not the small coffin laid

Beneath the heavy sod,

Striving to school their bursting hearts

To bear the stroke of God;

Then turning to the dreary home,
Once gay with childish mirth,

To view the silent nursery,

The sad, deserted hearth.

Yet, is it not a blessed thought
That we have one above

Who deals to us our varied gifts
With such impartial love?
Let not another's favored lot

Our anxious minds molest ;

God knows alike his need and ours, And judges for the best.

He wisely with some shadowy cloud
O'erspreads our brightest day;
He kindly cheers our deepest gloom
With some benignant ray;
And we may safely rest on Him,

Whose loving mercy lies

Not only in the good he sends,
But that which he denies.

CHILDHOOD'S GUARDIAN ANGELS.

O'ER wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces.

SO

Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school,
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it;
Do these upbear the little world below
Of Education Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks I see them grouped in seemly show,
The straitened arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that, touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend like snow embossed in snow;
O part them never! If hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.

But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,

Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies:
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to

Love.