THE BEGGAR'S PETITION. Oh! take me to your hospitable dome; Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold! Short is my passage to the friendly tomb, For I am poor, and miserably old. Should I reveal the sources of my grief, If soft humanity e'er touched your breast, Your hands would not withhold the kind relief, And tears of pity would not be repressed. 209 Heaven sends misfortunes-why should we repine? A little farm was my paternal lot, Then like the lark I sprightly hailed the morn; Pity the sorrows of a poor old man ! Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. MOSS. THE WILD VIOLET. Violet, violet, sparkling with dew, Down in the meadow-land wild, where you grew, With which your soft petals unfold? And how do you hold up your tender, young head, When rude, sweeping winds, rush along o'er your bed, And dark, gloomy clouds, ranging over you, shed Their waters so heavy and cold? No one has nursed you, or watched you an hour, Speak, my sweet violet, answer and tell, How you have grown up, and flourished so well, "The same careful Hand," the violet said, He sprinkled the stars out above me by night, KITTEN GOSSIP. 211 "I've nought to fear from the black, heavy cloud, Or the breath of the tempest that comes strong and loud, When born in the lowland, and far from the crowd, I know and I live but for One. He soon forms a mantle, about me to cast, Of long, silken grass, till the rain and the blast, And all that seemed threatening, have harmless by passed, As the clouds scud before the warm sun.' MISS H. F. GOULD. KITTEN GOSSIP. BY T. WESTWOOD. KITTEN, Kitten, two months old, Life? said the kitten, winking her eyes, |