March 9th.

THE Sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refined,
Is my soul's pleasure.

MEN might be better if we better deemed

Of them. The worst way to improve the world
Is to condemn it. Men may overget

Delusion-not despair.

March 10th,

As through the hedgerow shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals;
Her softer charms but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.

Now, while the thrush upon the barest bough
Sits singing high in azure, telling how

The spring-wind wanders where the children go
A-violeting by the warm hedge-row;
Daily more rich the sallow-palms unfold,
And change their silver into sunny gold.
"Good-bye, old Winter!" the blue heavens laugh;
"The flowers shall write you a kindly epitaph."

March 11th.

HEIGH-HO! daisies and buttercups,

Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall,

A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure,

And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall.

Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure,
God that is over us all!

BRISK as the month of March, yet with a grace
Of meditative sweetness in his face.

Keats.

James Philip Bailey.

Rogers.

Gerald Massey.

Jean Ingelow.

William Allingham.

March 10th.

March 11th.

March 13th.

March 12th.

O THOU that, after toil and storm,

May'st seem to have reached a purer air,
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form;
Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days.

Tennyson.

INDEED, indeed, as the old Poet saith,
He was a very perfect gentle knight.

Gerald Massey.

March 13th.

WHATE'ER he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please.

Dryden.

THY life's a warfare, thou a soldier art,
Satan's thy foeman, and a faithful heart

Thy two-edged weapon; patience thy shield;
Heaven is thy chieftain, and the world thy field.

Quarles.

SHE walks our world a shining one!

A woman with an angel-face,

Sweet gravity and tender grace;

And when she treads this world of ours,
Heaven blossoms into smiling flowers.

March 14th.

A LITTLE longer yet, a little longer

Shall violets bloom for thee, and sweet birds sing, And the lime-branches, where soft winds are blowing, Shall murmur the sweet promise of the spring.

CALL him not old, whose visionary brain
Holds o'er the past its undivided reign;
For him in vain the envious seasons roll,
Who bears eternal summer in his soul.

Gerald Massey.

Adelaide A. Procter.

Oliver W. Holmes.

March 15th.

FRIENDSHIP is power and riches all to me;
Friendship's another element of life:
Water and fire not of more general use
To the support and comfort of the world,
Than friendship to the being of my joy.

Southern.

I AM not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he most needs me.

Shakespeare.

March 16th.

BLESSED angels He sends to and fro,

To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.
How oft do they their silver bowres leave,

To come to succour us that succour want!

How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,

Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant!

Spenser.

THERE are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Shakespeare.

March 17th.

PEACE, for thy lot is other than a man's:

His is a path of thorns; he beats them down-
He faces death-he wrestles with despair.
Thine is of roses; to adorn and cheer

His barren lot, and hide the thorns in flowers:
So shalt thou be the lamp to light his path,
What time the shades of sorrow close around.

BLESSED are they who die for God,
And earn the martyr's crown of light;
Yet he who lives for God may be
A greater conqueror in his sight.

Lewis Carroll.

Adelaide A. Procter.