And the wanderer weary

Joyed that it was made,
For it gave to him a cheery
And a grateful shade.

Did the semblance of a shadow
On the wide sky pass?
It dusked the quiet meadow,
And the glistening grass;
It dimmed the forest fountain,
And the clover lea;

It deepened on the mountain,
Darkened on the sea.

Still though earth was shaded, And a gloom was there,

Never dulled or faded

Was the cloudlet fair;

For it ever sailed

Up so close to heaven,
That nothing could have failed
Of the beauty given.

Now a lustre glowing

In the silent west, From the sun was flowing

As he turned to rest;

And the cloud borne sunward,
Ever nearer, nigher,

Ever floated onward

Towards the sunset fire ;

All its being belted

With a glory bright,

While into heaven it melted
In a dream of light.
Never more glance crossed it
In the sky-heart far,

But where I had lost it

Shone the evening star

Like the cloud, keep union
With the pure and high,
Be thy communion

Beyond the sky;

So all love and graces,
And a light divine,
Shall have pleasant places

In that heart of thine.

And from thee will shower,
Upon all around,

A most precious dower,

Like the shade and sound,

Like the music blessing

Of lark's ziraleet,

Like the shadow's refreshing

In the summer heat.

If trouble and sadness

Be around, above,

Thou wilt drink deep gladness

From thy heaven of love;

As when earth was covered
With a twilight shroud,
Richer radiance hovered

Round the little cloud.

And when life is ending,
Oh, how dear to die
Like the cloudlet, blending
With the glorious sky!
And when unbeholden

As its beauties are,
To have memories, golden

As the lovely star!

Excelsior.

The Ivy.

HE ivy in a dungeon grew,
Unfed by rain, uncheered by dew;
Its pallid leaflets only drank

Cave moistures foul and odours dank.

But through the dungeon grating high,
There fell a sunbeam from the sky:

It slept upon the grateful floor
In silent gladness evermore.

The ivy felt a tremor shoot
Through all its fibres to the root;

It felt the light, it saw the ray,
It strove to issue into day.

It grew, it crept, it pushed, it clomb,
Long had the darkness been its home;
But well it knew, though veil'd in night,
The goodness and the joy of light.

Its clinging roots grew deep and strong;
Its stem expanded firm and long;
And in the currents of the air

Its tender branches flourished fair.

It reached the beam-it thrilled, it curled,
It blessed the warmth that cheers the world;

It rose toward the dungeon bars—

It looked upon the sun and stars.

It felt the life of bursting spring,

It heard the happy skylark sing;

It caught the breath of morns and eves,
And woo'd the swallow to its leaves.

By rains, and dews, and sunshine fed,
Over the outer wall it spread;
And in the day-beam waving free,
It grew into a steadfast tree.

Upon that solitary place

Its verdure threw adorning grace,
The mating birds became its guests,
And sang its praises from their nests.

Would'st know the moral of this rhyme?
Behold the heavenly light and climb!
Look up, O tenant of the cell,

Where man, the prisoner, must dwell.

In every dungeon comes a ray

Of God's interminable day,

On

every

heart a sunbeam falls,

To cheer its lonely prison walls.

The ray is Truth. Oh, soul, aspire,
To bask in its celestial fire;

So shalt thou quit the glooms of clay,
So shalt thou flourish into day.

So shalt thou reach the dungeon grate,
No longer dark and desolate;
And look around thee, and above,
Upon a world of light and love.

C. Mackay.

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Onward.

NWARD! the goal thou seekest
Is worthy the quest of a life,

And love can give to the weakest
Courage and strength for the strife.

High is the prize above thee,
In the light of that golden sky;