gave thee,

"I give thee to thy God!—the God that
A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart!

And, precious as thou art,

And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee, My own, my beautiful, my undefiled!

And thou shalt be His child.

"Therefore, farewell!-I go; my

soul may

fail me

As the stag panteth for the water-brooks,
Yearning for thy sweet looks;

But thou, my first-born, droop not, nor bewail me;
Thou in the shadow of the Rock shalt dwell,

The Rock of strength-Farewell."

Mrs. Hemans.

THE CHILD IN THE WILDERNESS.
ENCINCTURED with a twine of leaves,
That leafy twine his only dress—
A lovely boy was plucking fruits,
In a moonlight wilderness.

The moon was bright, the air was free,
And fruits and flowers together grew,
And many a shrub and many a tree;
And all put on a gentle hue,
Hanging in the shadowy air
Like a picture rich and rare!
It was a climate where, they say,
The night is more beloved than day.
But who that beauteous boy beguiled,
That beauteous boy, to linger here,
Alone by night, a little child,

In place so silent and so wild?—

Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

Coleridge.

SEEDS AND FRUITS.

WE scatter seeds with careless hand,
And dream we ne'er shall see them more;
But for a thousand years

Their fruit appears

In seeds that mar the land
Or healthful store.

The deeds we do the words we say
Into still air they seem to fleet;

We count them ever past,

But they shall last—

In the dread judgment, they

And we shall meet! Lyra Innocentium.

THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ.

MAY 28, 1857.

Ir was fifty years ago,

In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud

A child in the cradle lay.

And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, "Here is a story-book

Thy Father has written for thee."

1 Agassiz-the distinguished Swiss naturalist, who has been for many years a Professor in Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was he who once wrote, 'You study Nature in the house, and when you go out of doors you cannot find her.'

"Come wander with me," she said,
"Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God."

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale.

So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,

Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;

Though at times he hears in his dreams
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, "Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn;

It is growing late and dark,

And my boy does not return!

Longfellow.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

It was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper 1 had taken his little daughter,

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes, as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
With his pipe in his mouth;

And watched how the veering flaw 2 did blow
The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish Main:
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see !

The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and colder blew the wind,
A gale from the north-east;
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

1 Skipper-man of the ship, captain.
2 Flaw a sudden burst or gust of wind.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,

And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale,

That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat,
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
what may it be?"

O say,
"Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
O say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,
say, what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word,—
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face to the skies;

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands, and prayed That saved she might be ;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the waves On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow,