Then say "I can!" Yes, let it ring;
There is a volume there :

There's meaning in the eagle's wing:-
Then soar, and do, and DARE.

Oh, banish from you every "can't,"
And show yourself a man!

And nothing will your purpose daunt,

Led by the brave "I can.

XXIII.

'Tis a rule of the land that, when travelers meet,

In highway or by-way, in alley or street,

On foot or in wagon, by day or by night,
Each favor the other and turn to the right.

XXIV.

LITTLE rills make wider streamlets;
Streamlets swell the river's flow;

Rivers join the ocean billows,

Onward, onward as they go.
Life is made of smallest fragments,

Shade and sunshine, work and play;

So may we, with greatest profit,

Learn a little every day.

Tiny seeds make boundless harvests, Drops of rain compose the showers; Seconds make the flying minutes,

And the minutes make the hours. Let us hasten, then, and catch them As they pass us on the way; And with honest, true endeavor, Learn a little every day.

XXV.

ONE step and then another,
And the longest walk is ended;

One stitch and then another,

And the largest rent is mended; One brick upon another,

And the highest wall is made;

One flake upon another,

And the deepest snow is laid.

So the little coral workers,

By their slow but constant motion, Have built those lovely islands

In the distant, dark blue ocean; And the noblest undertakings Man's wisdom hath conceived,

By oft-repeated efforts

Have been patiently achieved.

XXVI.

WE are but minutes-little things!
Each one furnished with sixty wings,
With which we fly on our unseen track,
And not a minute ever comes back.

We are but minutes—yet each one bears
A little burden of joys and cares.
Patiently take the minutes of pain-
The worst of minutes can not remain.

We are but minutes-when we bring
A few of the drops from pleasure's spring,
Taste their sweetness while we stay-
It takes but a minute to fly away.

We are but minutes-use us well,

For how we are used we must one day tell.
Who uses minutes, has hours to use-
Who loses minutes, whole years must lose.

XXVII.

IF happiness have not her seat
And center in the breast,

We may be wise, or rich, or great,

But never can be blessed.

- Burns.

XXVIII.-CHILDREN.

WHAT the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,~

That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.

Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere.

For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are the living poems,
And all the rest are dead.

-H. W. Longfellow.

78

GRADED SELECTIONS FOR MEMORIZING.

XXIX.

THE Night is mother of the Day,

The Winter of the Spring,

And ever upon old Decay,

The greenest mosses cling.

Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all his works,
Has left his Hope with all.

-John G. Whittier.