While the angel hearts that beat there
Still all tender thoughts retain."

So the angel ceased, and gently
O'er his little burden leant ;
While the child gazed from the shining,
Loving eyes that o'er him bent,
To the blooming roses by him,

Wondering what that mystery meant.

Thus the radiant angel answer'd,

And with tender meaning smiled:
"Ere your child-like, loving spirit,
Sin and the hard world defiled,
God has given me leave to seek you—
I was once that little child!"

In the churchyard of that city
Rose a tomb of marble rare,
Deck'd, as soon as Spring awaken'd,
With her buds and blossoms fair-
And a humble grave beside it :—
No one knew who rested there.

Adelaide A. Procter.

ABOVE THE SPIRE.

ELL me why the swallows fly
Up into the cloudy sky?

Why they hover round the spire,
Wheeling lower, wheeling higher;
And, again their course repeating,
Now advancing, now retreating,
Till they, in a circling flight,
Soar for ever out of sight?

Mother, make me wings to fly,
Like the swallows in the sky;
Dancing, glancing, up on high,
Round the old church spire.

Summer swallows always go
When the bitter north winds blow,
And the heavy clouds are pouring,
Overflowing rivers roaring,
Racing down their pebbly courses

Like a troop of foaming horses,

Onward to the open sea,

Madly struggling to be free!

Child, hereafter you shall fly,

Like the swallows in the sky;
Unknown lands there are on high,

Far above the spire!

LL. B.

A FAREWELL.

Y fairest child, I have no song to give you ;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and

grey :

Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you

For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song.

Charles Kingsley.

SEVEN TIMES TWO.

ROMANCE.

OU bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your

changes,

How many soever they be,

And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges

Come over, come over to me.

Yet bird's clearest carol by fall or by swelling

No magical sense conveys,

And bells have forgotten their old art of telling

The fortune of future days.

“Turn again, turn again," once they sang cheerily,

While a boy listen'd alone;

Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily

All by himself on a stone.

Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over,

And mine, they are yet to be ;

No listening, no longing, shall aught, aught discover: You leave the story to me.

L

The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather, Preparing her hoods of snow;

She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: O, children take long to grow.

I wish, and I wish that the spring would go faster, Nor long summer bide so late;

And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, For some things are ill to wait.

I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover,
While dear hands are laid on my head;
“The child is a woman, the book may close over,
For all the lessons are said."

I wait for my story-the birds cannot sing it,
Not one, as he sits on the tree;

The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it!

Such as I wish it to be.

Jean Ingelow.