Mourn not for the owl nor his gloomy plight!
The owl hath his share of good;
If a prisoner he be in the broad daylight,
He is lord in the dark green wood!
Nor lonely the bird, nor his ghastly mate,
They are each unto each a pride;

Thrice fonder, perhaps, since a strange dark fate
Hath rent them from all beside!

So when the night falls, and dogs do howl,
Sing Ho! for the reign of the horned owl!
We know not alway who are kings by day,

But the king of the night is the bold brown owl.

Barry Cornwall.

LESSON XC.-THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

"And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." -DEUT. xxxiv. 6.

By Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave.
But no man dug that sepulchre,

And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod,

And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth.

Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;
So, without sound of music,

Or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown
The great procession swept.
Perchance the bald old eagle

On grey Bethpeor's height,
Out of his rocky eirie,

Looked on the wondrous sight. Perchance the lion stalking

Still shuns that sacred spot;

For beast and bird have seen and heard

That which man knoweth not.

But when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled drum,

Follow the funeral car.

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,

While peals the minute gun.

Amid the noblest of the land

Men lay the sage to rest,
And give the bard an honoured place

With costly marble drest,

In the great Minster transept,

Where lights like glories fall,

And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings

Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the bravest warrior

That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word; And never earth's philosopher Traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page truths half so sage,
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honour?
The hill-side for his pall,
To lie in state while angels wait,

With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave,

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in the grave.

In that deep grave without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again, most wondrous thought!

Before the judgment day;

And stand, with glory wrapped around,

On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life
With th' incarnate Son of God.

O lonely tomb in Moab's land!
O dark Bethpeor's hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath His mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep

Of him He loved so well.-Dublin Univ. Mag.

LESSON XCI.-HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD.

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows-
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field, and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray's edge-
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon flower!

R. Browning.

LESSON XCII.-THE LOST EXPEDITION.

Lift-lift, ye mists, from off the silent coast,
Folded in endless winter's chill embraces;
Unshroud for us awhile our brave ones lost!
Let us behold their faces!

In vain the North has hid them from our sight:

The snow their winding-sheet-their only dirges The groan of icebergs in the polar night,

Racked by the savage surges.

No funeral torches, with a smoky glare,

Shone a farewell upon their shrouded faces ; No monumental pillar, tall and fair,

Towers o'er their resting places.

But northern streamers flare the long night through
Over the cliffs stupendous, fraught with peril
Of icebergs, tinted with a ghostly hue

Of amethyst and beryl.

No human tears upon their graves are shed-
Tears of domestic love or pity holy ;
But snow-flakes from the gloomy sky o'erhead,
Down shuddering, settle slowly.

Yet history shrines them with her mighty dead,
The hero seamen of this isle of Britain;
And, when the brighter scroll of heaven is read,
There will their names be written.

LESSON XCIII.-THE RAINBOW.

A fragment of a rainbow bright
Through the moist air I see,
All dark and damp on yonder height,
All bright and clear to me.

An hour ago the storm was here,
The gleam was far behind;
So will our joys and griefs appear,
When earth has ceased to blind.

Grief will be joy, if on its edge
Fall soft that holiest ray;

Joy will be grief, if no faint pledge

Be there of heavenly day. -Keble.

Hood.