stronger oak. There were cool hollows where birds came to dip their bills and spray their feathers, and rocky steps where children climbed, joyous as the brook, laughing as they caught at the roots and stems which the trees lent for their aid. Cardinal flowers glowed here and there among the ferns on the margin, and the sunlit brook reflected their beauty. The blue sky leaned down over the close gathered treetops, to find its own color given back by the still waters. It was a friendly brook, that sang as it twisted and turned on its winding way to the sea, sang all the more when the way was rough. I smiled to hear it sing.

A comrade called to me from a shady hollow farther up, where the brook was wider and more serene: “Do hear this musical little gurgle where the water flows over these round stones!"

I answered, half impatiently: "How can I hear that ripple, when the brook is rushing and tumbling over these rocks here close beside me! 'Tis tumult here; the music is there with you."

"But listen, and try to hear," persisted my friend, quietly.

So I listened. The noise of the down pouring water, rushing from rock to rock, dashing against the boulders beneath the bridge, drowned every other sound. But as I harkened I became conscious of the peaceful singing of the calmer waters above. I listened till the turmoil was forgotten, and only the song was heard.

"I can hear it!" I called to my friend. "I can hear your music up there; and now I seem to hear nothing else." My comrade smiled. "I fancie 1 you might like to remember that you need not of necessity listen to the sound that seems the loudest and nearest, if you choose to hear something else."

I listened, and the brook sang on. I watched the spray and the shadows, the ripples and the foam; I rested in the beauty of it all, and thought of my new lesson. It was good to know that I might hear music in the midst of tumult, if I would.

"The Granby brook shall help me in my life-work," I thought. "I can listen for a peace word when I am impatient, for a rest word when I am weary, for a strength word when I am weak. In the busiest hours of the hurrying day I will choose to hear harmony instead of discord. My brook shall help me to be tranquil and erene."

STRAUSS' BOEDRY.-CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS.

Vagation dime vas coom again,
Vhen dhere vas no more shgool;
I goes to boardt, der coundtry oudt,
Vhere id vas nice und cool.

I dakes Katrina und Loweeze,

Und Leedle Yawcob Strauss;
Bud at der boarding house dhey dakes
"No shildren in der house."

I dells you vot! some grass don'd grow
Under old Yawcob's feet

Undil he gets a gouble a miles

Or so vay down der shtreet.
I foundt oudt all I vanted,-

For the rest I don'd vould care,-
Dot boarding blace vas nix for me
Vhen dhere been no shildren dhere.

Vot vas der hammocks und der shyings,
Grokay, und dings like dhese,
Und der hoogleperry bicnics,
Midoudt Yawcob und Loweeze?
It vas von shdrange conondrum,
Dot vos too much for Strauss,
How all dhose beople stand it
Mid no shildren in der house.

"Oh, vot vas all dot eardthly bliss,
Und vot vas man's soocksess;

Und vot vas various kindt of dings,,.`
Und vot vas habbiness?"

Dot's vot Hans Breittmann ask, von dime

Dhey all vas embty soundt!

Dot eardthly bliss vas nodings.

Vhen dhere vas no shildren roundt.

EUREKA.-STOCKTON BATES.

Two gods with Saturn's rings one day
The game of quoits began to play;
And these two ancient godly rakes
Set up earth's poles as hubs or stakes,
And drove them deep through icy snows,
But how, no human being knows;
Though many a one his reason taxes-
"Tis my belief they used earth's "axis."

At first the game was somewhat slow,-
Before they got warmed up, you know,—
No doubt 'twas owing to the cold,
For those extremes are so, we're told;
But, afterwards, excitement came

To start the blood and warm the frame:
Fierce animation lit their eyes
And flashed athwart the polar skies;
The lambent flame made wider leaps
As colder grew those frozen steeps;
And this is what, on chill, clear nights,
We oft hear styled the "Northern Lights,"
Or as we gaze with awe, appalled,

The "Aurora Borealis" called.

And still the game they fiercely play,
Year in, year out, day after day;
From north to south the circles sweep,
From south to north in motion keep,
Swifter and swifter, till they flash
A trail of light as on they dash;
And this is what the present day
Calls "nebulæ" or "milky way."
And when, in crashing conflict, meet
These whirling circles, fierce and fleet,
The impact further progress bars,
And hurls afar a shower of stars
That scatter down the heavenly track,
And streak with light night's curtain black,
Each forming, you may guess before,
A beautiful bright "meteor."

The Universe took sides, of course,
And shouted for their god till hoarse:
This noisy din of hopes and fears
Is styled the "music of the spheres."

The "Pleiades," those sisters seven,
Must take a peep of earth from heaven.
'Tis sad to tell the fate of one

Who, while she gazed upon the fun,
A ring came whirling swiftly by,
And popping in, popped out her eye.

Once a dispute grew rather hot
If one a ringer had or not;
They to the umpire then appealed,
And he examined well the field:
"It is a polar! see!" he cried,
A wild wind wafted it (then died)
Unto some scientific brain;

The matter seems so very plain-
'Twas this gave rise, 'twixt you and me,
To what is called the "Polar Sea."

This constant pounding, long indulged,
Has the equator rather bulged;
Or, in the words of some good souls,
"The world is flattened at the poles.*
You need not put implicit faith
In what this little story saith;
But, 'tis as sensible, and true

As explanations, not a few,

By theorists now dead and gone,

Of many a phenomenon.

THE OCEAN'S DEAD.-S. V. R. FORD.

Down in the depths,

Beneath old ocean's silver-crested waves,

Beneath the surging billows' ceaseless roar,

In the vast watery realm where mystery reigns,
And solitude eternal vigil keeps,

There sleep unnumbered dead. Their wasted forms,

People the caverns of the mighty deep,

Whose vast recesses God's omniscient eye

Alone can penetrate; whose labyrinths,
All unexplored by man, have ne'er betrayed
Their mysteries since in creation's morn
God formed the seas. Here cities of the dead,
Founded and populated in an hour,
Sit in the shadows of eternal night,

Where silence reigns enthroned forevermore.
E'er and anon a staunch and goodly ship,
Unconscious of approaching destiny,
Bows out of port responsive to th' acclaim
Of fond adieus and benedictions given,
And riding forth in queenly majesty,
Upon the bosom of the treacherous main,
Conveys a multitude of living souls
From scenes of mirth and glad festivity,
Into the boundless, fathomless abyss,
Into the regions of eternal night.

Thus one brief hour suffices to transform
The gallant ship which proudly rode the wave
Into a coffin and a sepulcher,-

A tomb, whose decorations, erst their pride,
Now mock the ghastly forms, "in burial blent,"
Of those who, fondly trusting they should find
The longed-for haven, found a watery grave.
When are committed to the voiceless depths,
By trembling hands, the ashes of the dead,
Old ocean welcomes the descending dust
And, closing o'er it, quick obliterates
All trace and all remembrance of the spot
Where it shall hold in trust for Deity,
Until the resurrection of the dead,
The priceless treasure of a human form.
When sink the living down to rise no more,
Entombed ere life surrenders up its trust,
Heaven grants them painless exit, while the sea,
As if atoning its remorseless deed,

Thrills them with blissful visions of the past,

And as the life-tide flows forever out,

And spirit bidding flesh adieu, ascends

"Out of the depths" to Him who gave it birth, Lulls them to dreamless sleep.

Kind Mother Earth

Bequeaths a resting place when life is o'er

To all the children nurtured at her breast.

Yet oft the living set aside her will

And rob the dead of their inheritance.

Betimes the spirit as it hovers o'er

The grave where rests in hope its own loved form, · Beholds with anguish deeds of horrid mien,

Rude acts of desecration wrought by ghouls