UNKIND REFLECTIONS.

OH! never let us lightly fling

A barb1 of woe to wound another;
Oh! never let us haste to bring

The cup of sorrow to a brother.

Each has the power to wound; but he
Who wounds that he may witness pain,
Has spurned the law of charity,

Which ne'er inflicts a pang in vain.

'Tis godlike to awaken joy,

Or sorrow's influence to subdue-
But not to wound, or to annoy,
Is part of virtue's lesson too.

Peace, winged in fairer worlds above,
Shall lend her dawn to brighten this;
Then all man's labour shall be love,

And all his aim his brother's bliss.

Gisborne.

THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.'

TOLL for the brave!

The brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!

1 Barb-an arrow.

2 The Royal George-a vessel of war of 100 guns, commanded by Admiral Kempenfelt, which went down in Spithead harbour, August 29, 1782, with 800 men on board, who were all lost.

Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel,1

And laid her on her side;

A land breeze shook the shrouds,

And she was overset ;

Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.

Toll for the brave!

Brave Kempenfélt is gone;
His last sea fight is fought;
His work of glory done.

It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak;
She ran upon no rock :

His sword was in his sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down,
With twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up,

Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with our cup

The tear that England owes.

Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again,

1 Heel-lean on one side.

Full-charged with England's thunder,
And plough the distant main.1

But Kempenfelt is gone;
His victories are o'er;

And he and his eight hundred

Shall plough the wave no more.

Cowper.

LESSONS TO BE DERIVED FROM BIRDS. WHAT is that, mother?

The lark, my child!

The morn has but just looked out, and smiled,
When he starts from his humble grassy nest,
And is up and away with the dew on his breast,
And a hymn in his heart, to yon pure bright sphere,
To warble it out in his Maker's ear.

Ever, my child! be thy morn's first lays
Tuned, like the lark's, to thy Maker's praise?

What is that, mother?

The dove, my son!

And that low, sweet voice, like a widow's moan,
Is flowing out from her gentle breast,
Constant and pure by that lonely nest,

This hope was never realised. The vessel remained in the spot where it had sunk for more than fifty years; but in the course of the last few years, Colonel Pasley, a celebrated engineer, succeeded, by means of the diving-bell, in recovering several of the guns and other stores, and in bursting asunder, with charges of gunpowder, the timbers of the hulk, which still held firmly together.

CC

As the wave is poured from some crystal urn,
For her distant dear one's quick return.
Ever, my son, be thou like the dove-
In friendship as faithful, as constant in love.

What is that, mother?

The eagle, boy!

Proudly careering his course of joy,
Firm on his own mountain vigour relying,
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying;
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward, right on,
Boy! may the eagle's flight ever be thine,
Onward and upward, true to the line.

What is that, mother?

The swan, my love!

He is floating down from his native grove;
No loved one, now, no nestling nigh,
He is floating down by himself to die;
Death darkens his eye, and unplumes his wings,
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings.1
Live so, my love, that when death shall come,
Swan-like and sweet, it may waft thee home.

G. W. Doane.

SABBATH MORNING.

How still the morning of the hallowed day!
Mute is the voice of rural labour, hushed

The notion of the swan's singing before its death, and indeed of its singing at all, must be reckoned amongst the fictions of the poets.

The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song;
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass,1 mingled with fading flowers,
That yestermorn bloomed waving in the breeze :
Sounds the most faint attract the ear- -the hum
Of early bee, the rustling of the leaves,
The distant bleating, midway up the hill.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,2
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale,
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song: the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen,
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.

Grahame.

MORAL MAXIMS

FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS.

TRUST not yourself, but, your defects to know,
Make use of every friend, of every foe.

Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such,
Who still are pleased too little, or too much :
At every trifle scorn to take offence-
That always shows great pride, or little sense.

1 Tedded grass-newly-mown grass, laid in rows. 2 Lea-enclosed pasture land.

Pope.

Id.