ERE where sweet and varied tones
Bird and breeze and fountains fall,
Yet creation's travail-groans

Ever sadly sigh through all.

There no discord jars the ear

Harmony is perfect There.

LANGE.

VILLAGE BELLS.

H, merry are the village bells that sound with soothing chime

From the dim old tower, grown gray be

neath the shadowy touch of Time.

A few short years, a few brief suns, in earthly homes we dwell,

Then Life with all its dreams shall be but as a passing

bell!

E. CARRINGTON.

THE SILENT HARP.

H! wherefore is it thus with me, that love divine

Has praise from every other lip, and none from mine?

That every other harp can find a joyful note,

To sing of Thy redeeming love, while mine is mute? I struck it twice, I struck it thrice-it has forgot The wonted song of gratitude-it answers not.

The ruthless winds have played on it, and they have

torn

That only chord of joyfulness—there was but one. They struck it twice, they struck it thrice-its Music woke

The deepest echoes of the soul-and then it broke.
O Lord, make haste! for it is Thou alone canst string
With Thine own hand this riven heart that it may

sing.

C. FRY.

OLY be the lay which mourning soothes the mourner on his way.

HERE is not any Musicke of instruments whatsoever comparable to that which is made of the voyces of men.

E who wintry hours hath given,

With the snows gives snow-drops birth; And while angels sing in heaven,

God hears robins sing on earth.

Only keep thee on the wing,
Music dieth in the dust,
Nothing but that creeps can sing,

Soaring, we can sing and trust.

S long as Love continues the most imperious passion, and Death the surest fact of our

mingled and marvellous humanity,—so long will the sweetest and truest Music on earth be ever in the minor key.

PRING gave the song-bird back the song,
That late in wintry durance lay;

Shall I, then, after waiting long,

My heart again be gay?

Alas! there is no spring for thee,

Song died because the flowers were ta'en,

And all the wild-wood minstrelsie

Came with the flowers again.

But to give back thy music lost
It is not spring that has the power;
Spring cannot touch the bitter frost
That holds thy captive flower.

HORDS that vibrate sweetest pleasure,
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

mind?

MUSIC.

HAT means this siege of ravished heart and brain?

What may these spiritual echoes bring to

It seems not wholly joy nor wholly pain :
But each with each inhabiteth one strain,
Till thence a marvellous ecstasy combined
Makes sorrow not unwilling, tears pure gain.
Is it a yearning memory of bliss

From some far life that knew me long ago,
More painless and more equable than this,
Ere yet, fast bound with iron gyves within,
I died into this prison-house of woe?
Ah! that I yet may find some useful lore,
Not wholly deadened by the clasp of sin,
To conquer that delightful land once more!
PHILIP STANHOPE WORSLEY.