If I could mend a broken cart to-day,

To-morrow make a kite, to reach the sky
There is no woman in God's world could say

She was more blissfully content than I.
But ah! the dainty pillow next my own
Is never rumpled by a shining head;
My singing birdling from its nest is flown;
The little boy I used to kiss is dead!

EVEN IN A PALACE.

I.

MARCUS AURELIUS.

SUCH as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace: well, then, he can also live well in a palace.

EVEN IN A PALACE.

II.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

"Even in a palace, life may be led well!"
So spake the imperial Sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell,

And drudge under some foolish master's ken,
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen-
Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?

"Even in a palace!" On his truth sincere
Who spoke those words no shadow ever came,
And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame,

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I'll stop, and say: "There were no succor here!
The aids to noble life are all within."

COMPLAINT OF THE BIRD IN A DARK ROOM.

JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

"AH!" sighed the imprisoned bird, "how unhappy were I in my eternal night, but for those melodious tones which sometimes make their way to me like beams of light from afar, and cheer my gloomy day. But I will myself repeat these heavenly melodies like an echo, until I have stamped them in my heart; and so I shall be able to comfort myself in my darkness!"

Thus spoke the little warbler and soon had learned the sweet airs that were sung to it with voice and instrument. That done, the curtain was raised; for the darkness had been purposely contrived to assist in its instruction. O man! how often dost thou complain of overshadowing grief and of darkness resting upon

thy days! And yet what cause for complaint, unless indeed thou hast failed to learn wisdom from suffering? Is not the whole sum of human life a veiling and an obscuring of the immortal spirit of man? Then first, when the fleshly curtain falls away, may it soar upward into a region of happier melodies!

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.

ROBERT BROWNING.

MORNING, evening, noon, and night,
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he labored, long and well:
O'er his work the boy's curls fell.

But ever, at each period,

He stopped and sang,

Praise God!

Then back again his curls he threw,

And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son,

"As well as if thy voice to-day

Were praising God, the Pope's great way.

"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I

Might praise Him, that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone;

And Theocrite was gone.

With God a day endures alway:
A thousand years are but a day.

God said in heaven, " Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight."

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,

Lived there, and played the craftsman well;

And morning, evening, noon, and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.

And from a boy, to youth he grew ;
The man put off the stripling's hue;

The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay;

And ever o'er the trade he bent,

And ever lived on earth content.

(He did God's will; to him, all one If on the earth or in the sun.)

God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear :

"So sing old worlds, and so

New worlds that from my footstool

"Clearer loves sound other ways: I miss my little human praise."

go.

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell The flesh disguise, remained the cell.

'Twas Easter Day: he flew to Rome, And paused above Saint Peter's dome.

In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,

With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:

And all his past career
Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;

And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer: