Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

THE DYING BOY.
Anon.

I KNEW a boy whose infant feet had trod
Upon the blossoms of some seven springs,
And when the eighth came round, and called
him out

To gambol in the sun, he turned away,

And sought his chamber to lie down and die.
'Twas night he summoned his accustomed
friends,

And on this wise bestowed his last bequest :

'Mother, I'm dying now

There is deep suffocation in my breast,
As if some heavy hand my bosom prest;
And on my brow

'I feel the cold sweat stand;

My lips grow dry and tremulous, and my breath
Comes feebly up; oh! tell me, is this death?
Mother! your hand.

'Here-lay it on my wrist,

And place the other thus beneath my head,

And say, sweet mother, say, when I am dead, Shall I be missed?

'Never beside your knee

Shall I kneel down again at night to pray, Nor with the morning wake, and sing the lay You taught to me.

'Oh! at the time of prayer,

When you look round and see a vacant seat, You will not wait then for my coming feet, You'll miss me there!

'Father! I'm going home,

To the good home you speak of, that blest land Where it is one bright summer always, and Storms do not come.

'I must be happy then!

From pain and death you say I shall be free, That sickness never enters there, and we Shall meet again.

'Brother! the little spot

I used to call my garden, where long hours We've stayed to watch the budding things and flowers;

Forget it not.

'Plant there some box or pine,
Something that lives in winter, and will be
A verdant offering to my memory,
And call it mine.

'Sister! my young rose tree

That all the spring has been my pleasant care,
Just putting forth its leaves so green and fair,
I give to thee.

'And when its roses bloom,

I shall be gone away-my short life done;
But will you not bestow a single one
Upon my tomb?

Now mother! sing that tune

You sang last night, I'm weary and must sleep!
Who was it called my name? Nay, do not weep;
You'll all come soon!'

Morning spread over earth her rosy wings,
And that meek sufferer, cold and ivory pale,
Lay on his couch asleep. The gentle air
Came through the open windows freighted with
The savory odors of the early spring.

He breathed it not!-The laugh of passers by
Jarred like a discord in some mournful tune,
But marred not his slumbers-he was dead!

*

LEAVES.

R. Montgomery.

*

* Leaves,

That fade and drop into the frozen arms

Of winter, there to mingle with dead flowers,
Are all prophetic of our own decay.

THE SEA SHELL.

B. Barton.

HAST thou heard of a shell on the margin of ocean,

Whose pearly recesses the echoes still keep, Of the music it caught when, with tremulous

motion,

It joined in the concert poured forth by the deep?

And fables have told us when far inland carried, To the waste sandy desert, and dark ivied

cave,

In its musical chambers some murmurs have tarried,

It learnt long before of the wind and the

wave.

Oh! thus should our spirits, which bear many a token

They are not of earth, but are exiles while

here,

Preserve in the banishment, pure and unbroken, Some sweet treasured notes of their own native sphere.

Though the dark clouds of sin may at times hover o'er us,

And the discords of earth may their melody

mar,

Yet to spirits redeemed some faint notes of that chorus,

Which is born of the blest, will be brought from afar.

THE COMMON LOT.

3. Montgomery.

"ONCE in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man, and who was he?
Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,
That man resembleth thee!

Unknown the region of his birth,

The land in which he lived unknown;
His name hath perished from the earth;
This truth survives alone:

That joy, and grief, and hope and fear,
Alternate triumphed in his breast;
His bliss and woe, a smile, a tear!
Oblivion hides the rest.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirit's rise and fall,
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffered-but his pangs are o'er;
Enjoyed-but his delights are fled;

Had friends-his friends are now no more;
And foes-his foes are dead.