SONG OF THE DAISIES.
WE are the poor children's flowers;
Scattered broadcast, like the showers
That on the good and evil fall;
For we were sent to gladden all.
They call us Children of the Spring,
Because we early tidings bring

Of the flowers all ways coming,

Of the bees they'll soon hear humming,
Of birds now crossing stormy floods,
To sing in England's Summer woods;
Of increasing length of days,

Of miles of buttercups ablaze

With all their length and breadth of gold;
All these are by our coming told.
Poets dead and gone have sung
"The daisies they are ever young."
Soon after heaven's stars had birth,
We were made the stars of earth,
And placed amid the grass so green,
That we might be the better seen.
We look up to the stars at night,
And they upon us shed their light;
It may be while we sing their praises,
The stars too hymn about the daisies.
Pluck us by millions, millions more
Will spring up where we sprang before;
And through all time fill up our place,
For we are an undying race.

The snow-white lambs lie down to sleep
When we close our starry eyes;
When at the rising sun we peep,
The lambs again prepare to rise.
Some
say the lambs asleep can feel
Our star-shaped petals, when we wake,

And that their eyes they then unseal; For by our sides their beds they make. How, I cannot rightly tell,

But between the lamb and me, There's ever been, since Abel fell,

A strange mysterious sympathy; For I was Abel's favourite flower,

And never bore a crimson stain, Till he was in that fatal hour

Murdered by the hand of Cain. The lark amongst us does alight,

And sleeps beside us all night long, Till in the East the dawn breaks bright, And then she wakes us with her song.

Children do us daisies praise,
For we bring them sunny days;
Tell them Winter's past and gone,
And that Summer's coming on;
That the swallow o'er the sea
Is hastening, and the belted bee
Is getting restless in its hive;
That the birds will soon arrive;
All the singing Summer-band
Will on the trees and hedges stand,
And one another, all day long,
Challenge and answer with a song,
Until their wild wood-notes fill
Every valley, dale, and hill.

"The daisies they are ever young ;"

When off our silver fringe we've flung,
Then to your eyes we still unfold
A rounded boss of chastest gold.
Oh! would you number us? First try
To count the stars upon the sky,
The leaves when Summer hangs the land,
The grains on ocean's beds of sand;

Then pluck as many as you may,
And more will come another day.
Gather us all, and have no fear,
But more will come another year.
Then run and laugh, and shout our praises;
Your trampling feet can't hurt the daisies.

Thomas Miller.

WE ALL MIGHT DO GOOD.

WE all might do good

Where we often do ill;

There is always the way

If there is but the will.
Though it be but a word

Kindly breathed or suppressed,
It may guard off some pain,
Or give peace to some breast.

We all might do good

In a thousand small ways-
In forbearing to flatter,
Yet yielding due praise ;
In spurning ill rumour,
Reproving wrong done,
And treating but kindly

The heart we have won.

We all might do good,
Whether lowly or great,

For the deed is not gauged

By the purse or estate.

If it be but a cup

Of cold water that's given,

Like the widow's two mites,

It is something for Heaven.-- A. H. P.