CONTENTMENT.

JOME murmur when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,

If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue:
And some with thankful love are filled
If but one streak of light,

One ray of God's good mercy, gild
The darkness of their night.

In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied:
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How love has in their aid

(Love that not ever seems to tire)
Such rich provision made.

R. C. TRENCH.

F

SAD AND SWEET.

SAD is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet:
Sad is our life, for it is ever flowing
In current unperceived, because so fleet:

Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing,
But tares self-sown have overtopped the wheat :
Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing-
And still, O still their dying breath is sweet—
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter still:
And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A newer good to cure an older ill:

And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them
Not for their sake but His, who grants them, or denies

them!

AUBREY DE VERE.

SAINTFOIN.

WHAT have the Pilgrims told

About this flower?

Said they, when in times of old

The Infant in the manger lay,

Thou thy blossoms didst display,

And changed His humble birthplace to a bower.

ALFRED L. HUXFORD.

A

MY CHILDHOOD'S TUNE.

ND hast thou found my soul again,
Though many a shadowy year hath past
Across its chequered path since when

I heard thy low notes last?

They come with the old pleasant sound,
Long silent, but remembered soon-
With all the fresh green memories wound
About my childhood's tune!

I left thee far among the flowers

My hand shall seek as wealth no more→
The lost sight of those morning hours
No sunrise can restore.

And life hath many an early cloud
That darkens as it nears the noon-
But all their broken rainbows crowd
Back with my childhood's tune!

Thou hast the whisper of young leaves
That told my heart of spring begun,
The bird's song by our hamlet eaves,
Poured to the setting sun-

And voices heard, how long ago,

By winter's hearth or autumn's moon!They have grown old and altered now— All but my childhood's tune!

At our last meeting, Time had much
To teach, and I to learn; for then
Mine was a trusting wisdom--such
As will not come again.

I had not seen life's harvest fade
Before me in the days of June;
But thou-how hath the spring-time stayed
With thee, my childhood's tune!

I had not learned that love, which seemed So priceless, might be poor and cold; Nor found whom once I angels deemed Of coarse and common mould.

I knew not that the world's hard gold
Could far outweigh the heart's best boon;
And yet thou speakest as of old-

My childhood's pleasant tune.