Page images
PDF
EPUB

But Nature, with resistless laws,
Made Adam soon surpass the birds;
She gave him lovely Eve because

If he'd a wife they must have words.

And so the native land, I hold,

By male descent is proudly mine; The language, as the tale hath told, Was given in the female line. And thus we see on either hand

We name our blessings whence they've sprung; We call our country Father Land, We call our language Mother Tongue.

A CONFESSION.

(Washington Star.)

I've been down to the city, an' I've seen the 'lectric lights,

The twenty-story buildin's an' the other stunnin' sights;

I've seen th' trolley-cars a-rushin' madly down

the street,

An' all the place a-lookin' like a fairy-land com

plete.

But I'd rather see the big trees that's a-growin' up to home,

An' watch the stars a-twinklin' in the blue an' lofty dome;

An' I'd rather hear the wind that goes a-singin' past the door

Than the traffic of the city, with its bustle an' its

roar.

I reckon I'm peculiar, an' my tastes is kind o' low; But what's the use denyin' things that certainly is so?

I went up to a concert, an' I heard the music

there;

It sounded like angelic harps a-floatin' through the air.

Yet spite of all its glory an' the gladness an' acclaim,

If I stopped to think a minute, I was home-sick jes' the same;

An' I couldn't help confessin', though it seems a curious thing,

That I'd rather hear a robin sweetly pinin' in the spring.

SMALL BEGINNINGS.

CHARLES MACKAY.

A traveller through a dusty road strewed acorns on the lea;

And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree.

Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breathe its early vows;

And age was pleased, in heats of noon, to bask beneath its boughs;

The dormouse loved its dangling twigs, the birds sweet music bore;

It stood a glory in its place, a blessing evermore.

A little spring had lost its way amid the grass and fern,

A passing stranger scooped a well, where weary men might turn;

He walled it in, and hung with care a ladle at the brink;

He thought not of the deed he did, but judged that toil might drink.

He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, and saved a life beside.

A dreamer dropped a random thought; 'twas old, and yet 'twas new;

A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being

true.

It shone upon a genial mind, and lo! its light be

came

A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame. The thought was small; its issue great; a watchfire on the hill;

It sheds its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still!

A nameless man, amid a crowd that thronged the daily mart,

Let fall a word of Hope and Love, unstudied, from the heart;

A whisper on the tumult thrown,-a transitory breath,

It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from death.

O germ! O fount! O word of love! O thought at random cast!

Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the

last.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

CHARLES LAMB.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of

my

child

hood, Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces,

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »