Go forth, though ye be humble,
And wan with toil and care;
There are no fields so barren,
But some sweet flower is there!

Flowers spring up by the highway
Which busy feet have trod;
They rise up in the dreariest wood;
They gem the dullest sod.

They need no learned gardeners
To nurture them with care;
They only need the dews of earth,
The sunshine and the air.

And for earth's lowly children,
For loving hearts and good,
They spring up all around us,
They will not be subdued.

-Thank God! when forth from Eden
The weeping pair was driven,

That unto earth, though cursed with thorns,
The little flowers were given!

That Eve, when looking downward,
To face her God afraid,
Beheld the scented violet,
The primrose in the shade!

Thank God, that with the thistle
That sprang up in his toil,
The weary worker, Adam,
Saw roses gem the soil!

And still for anxious workers,
For hearts with anguish full,
Life, even on its dreariest paths,
Has flowers for them to cull!

THE CHILD AND THE MOURNERS.

By CHARLES MACKAY.

A LITTLE child beneath a tree

Sat and chanted cheerily

A little song, a pleasant song,

Which was-she sang it all day long

"When the wind blows the blossoms fall: But a good God reigns over all."

There pass'd a lady by the way,
Moaning in the face of day:
There were tears upon her cheek,
Grief in her heart too great to speak;
Her husband died but yester-morn,
And left her in the world forlorn.

She stopp'd and listen'd to the child
That look'd to heaven, and singing, smiled;
And saw not for her own despair,
Another lady, young and fair,
Who, also passing, stopp'd to hear
The infant's anthem ringing clear.

For she but a few sad days before
Had lost the little babe she bore;
And grief was heavy at her soul
As that sweet memory o'er her stole,
And show'd how bright had been the past,
The present drear and overcast.

And as they stood beneath the tree
Listening, soothed and placidly,
A youth came by, whose sunken eyes
Spake of a load of miseries;
And he, arrested like the twain,
Stopp'd to listen to the strain.

Death had bow'd the youthful head
Of his bride beloved, his bride unwed:
Her marriage robes were fitted on,
Her fair young face with blushes shone,
When the destroyer smote her low,
And changed the lover's bliss to woe.

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And these three listened to the song,
Silver-toned, and sweet, and strong,
Which that child, the livelong day,
Chanted to itself in play:

"When the wind blows the blossoms fall,
But a good God reigns over all."

The widow's lips impulsive moved;
The mother's grief, tho' unreproved,
Soften'd, as her trembling tongue
Repeated what the infant sung;
And the sad lover, with a start,
Conn'd it over to his heart.

And though the child-if child it were,
And not a seraph sitting there—
Was seen no more, the sorrowing three
Went on their way resignedly,
The song still ringing in their ears—
Was it music of the spheres ?

Who shall tell? They did not know.
But in the midst of deepest woe
The strain recurr'd when sorrow grew,
To warn them, and console them too:
"When the wind blows the blossoms fall,
But a good God reigns over all."

SAXON WORDS.

By Mrs. CHARLES TINSLEY.

OLD Saxon words, old Saxon words! your spells are round

us thrown;

Ye haunt our daily paths and dreams with a music all your

own;

Each one, in its own power a host, to fond remembrance brings The earliest, brightest aspect back of life's familiar things.

Yours are the hills, the fields, the woods, the orchards, and

the streams,

The meadows and the bowers that bask in the sun's rejoicing beams:

Mid them our childhood's years were kept, our childhood's thoughts were rear'd,

And by your household tones its joys were evermore endear'd.

We have roam'd since then where the myrtle bloom'd in its own unclouded realms

But our hearts returned with changeless love to the brave old Saxon elms;

Where the laurel o'er its native streams of a deathless glory spoke

But we pass'd with pride to the later fame of the sturdy Saxon oak.

We have marvelled at those mighty piles on the old Egyptian plains,

And our souls have thrill'd to the loveliness of the lovely Grecian fanes;

We have lingered o'er the wreck of Rome, with its classic memories crown'd

But these touched us not as the mouldering walls with the Saxon ivy bound.

Old Saxon words, old Saxon words! they bear us back

with pride

To the days when Alfred ruled the land by the laws of Him that died;

When in one spirit, truly good and truly great, was shown What earth has owed, and still must owe, to such as him alone.

There are tongues of other lands, that flow with a softer, smoother grace,

But the old rough Saxon words will keep in our hearts their own true place;

Our household hearths, our household graves, our household smiles and tears,

Are guarded, hallow'd, shrined by them—the kind, fast friends of years.

Old Saxon words, old Saxon words! your spells are round us thrown;

Ye haunt our daily paths and dreams with a music all your

own;

Each one, in its own power a host, to fond remembrance brings

The earliest, brightest aspect back of life's familiar things.

THE WIDOWER.

By SYDNEY YENDYS.

In the most early morn

I rise from a damp pillow, tempest-tost,
To seek the sun with silent gaze forlorn,
And mourn for thee, my lost

That early hour I meet,

Isabel.

The daily vigil of my life to keep,

Because there are no other lights so sweet,

Or shades so long and deep,

And best I think of thee

Isabel.

Beside the duskest shade and brightest sun,
Whose mystic lot in life it was to be

Outsmiled, outwept by none

Isabel.

Men said that thou wert fair:

There is no brightness in the heaven above-
There is no balm upon the summer air,

Like thy warm love,

Isabel.

Men saw that thou wert bright:

There is no wildness in the winds that blow

There is no darkness in the winter's night,

Like thy dark woe,

And yet thy path did miss

Isabel.

Men's footsteps; in their haunts thou hadst no joy:
The thoughts of other worlds were thine in this :
In thy sweet piety, and in thy bliss

And grief, for life too coy,

Isabel.