THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF.

XXXIII. THE CHILD'S FIRST GRIEF.

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SUFFERING comes to us through and from our whole nature. It cannot be winked out of sight. It cannot be thrust into a subordinate place in the picture of human life. It is the chief burden of history. It is the solemn theme of one of the highest departments of literature, the tragic drama. It gives to fictions their deep interest. It wails through much of our poetry. A large part of human vocations are intended to shut up some of its avenues. It has left traces on every human countenance, over which years have passed. It is to not a few the most vivid recollection of life."-Channing.

OH! call my brother back to me !
I cannot play alone;

The summer comes with flower and bee;
Where is my brother gone?

The butterfly is glancing bright
Across the sunbeam's track;

I care not now to chase its flight—
Oh! call my brother back!

The flowers run wild,-the flowers we sowed
Around our garden tree;

Our vine is drooping with its load

Oh! call him back to me !

He would not hear thy voice, fair child—
He may not come to thee!

The face that once like spring-time smiled
On earth no more thou'lt see.

A rose's brief bright life of joy,
Such unto him was given;

Go, thou must play alone, my boy!

Thy brother is in heaven.

And has he left his birds and flowers?

And must I call in vain ?

And thro' the long, long summer hours,
Will he not come again?

And by the brook and in the glade
Are all our wanderings o'er?

Oh! while my brother with me played,
Would I had loved him more!

MRS. HEMANS.

XXXIV. LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING.

A

"IT is to the young mind that nature is so fascinating, as soon as any person or circumstance has once directed the attention to it. mature man, who had never been the child and youth, would not have felt from nature those impressions, which our Wordsworth has so interestingly delineated. It is because we have passed through these stages, and have recollections of what then occurred to ourselves, that we understand and enjoy the verses which recall to us the realities they describe."-Turner's Sacred History of the World.

I HEARD a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link

The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.
If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be nature's holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

WORDSWORTH.

XXXV, SEPARATION.

"WE cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the richness of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had

bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, Up and onward for evermore !' We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards.”Emerson..

FRIEND after friend departs,

Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end!
Were this frail world our final rest,
Living or dying none were blest.

Beyond the flight of time,—

Beyond the reign of death,-
There surely is some blessed clime,
Where life is not a breath;
Nor life's affections transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upwards and expire.

There is a world above,

Where parting is unknown;
A long eternity of love,

Formed for the good alone;
And faith beholds the dying here
Translated to that glorious sphere!

Thus star by star declines,
Till all are past away;

As morning high and higher shines,

To pure and perfect day:

Nor sink those stars in empty night,

But hide themselves in heaven's own light.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

XXXVI. TO A DAISY.

"THE vegetable kingdom, in its varied flowers, foliage, stems, and graceful and delicate expansions; in its playful branches and gentle movements, and in its multiplied fruits and useful products of numerous sorts and of universal application, displays a peculiar goodness, liberality, and kindness in the Divine mind towards His human race --a desire to please, to interest and to amuse us with the most innocent, continual, accessible and gratifying enjoyments."- Turner's Sacred History.

BRIGHT flower whose home is everywhere?
A pilgum bold in nature's care,

And oft, the long year through, the heir
Of joy or sorrow.

Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest through!

And wherefore? Man is soon deprest;
A thoughtless thing; who once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,

Or on his reason.

But thou wouldst teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind;

A hope for times that are unkind,
And every season.

WORDSWORTH.

XXXVII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

"ONE of the most special appointments of the Creator, as to birds, and which nothing but His chosen design and corresponding ordainment can explain, is the law, that so many kinds shall migrate from one country to another, and most commonly at vast distances from each other. They might have been all framed to breed, be born, live, and die, in the same region, as occurs to some, and as quadrupeds and insects do. But He has chosen to make them travel from one climate to another, with unerring precision, from an irresistible instinct, with a wonderful courage, with an untiring mobility, and in a right and never-failing direction. For this purpose, they cross oceans without fear, and with a persevering exertion that makes our most exhausting labours a comparative amusement. Philosophy in vain endeavours to account for the extraordinary phenomenon. It cannot discover any adequate physical reason. Warmer temperatures are not essentially necessary to incubation, nor always the object of the emigration; for the snow bunting, though a bird of song, goes into the frozen zone to breed, lay, and nurture its young. The snow bird has the same taste or constitution for the chilling weather, which the majority recede from. We can only resolve all these astonishing journeys into tne appointment of the Creator, who has assigned to every bird the habits, as well as the form, which it was his good pleasure to imagine and to attach to it. The watchful naturalist may hear, if not see, several migrations of those which frequent our island, both to and fro, as spring advances and as autumn declines. They are more numerous in the latter season, from the addition of their progeny. Their movement takes place chiefly at

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

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the latter part of the night, or at early dawn, though som, are seen in the more advanced part of the morning; but as they sail along the higher regions of the atmosphere, they are much oftener audible than visible to us on the surface of the earth."- Turner's Sacred History of the World.

BIRDS, joyous birds of the wandering wing!

Whence is it ye come with the flowers of spring?
"We come from the shores of the green old Nile,'
From the land where the roses of Sharon smile,
From the palms that wave through the Indian sky,
From the myrrh-trees of glowing Araby.

"We have swept o'er cities in song renowned,3
Silent they lie with the deserts round!

We have crossed proud rivers, whose tide hath roll'd
All dark with the warrior blood of old;
And each worn wing hath regained its home,
Under peasant's roof-tree or monarch's dome."
And what have ye found in the monarch's dome,
Since last ye traversed the blue sea's foam ?

"We have found a change, we have found a pall,
And a gloom o'ershadowing the banquet's hall,
And a mark on the floor as of life-drops spilt,
Nought looks the same, save the nest we built!"
Oh! joyous birds, it hath still been so ;
Through the halls of kings doth the tempest go!
But the huts of the hamlet lie still and deep,
And the hills o'er their quiet a vigil keep,*
Say what have ye found in the peasant's cot,
Since last ye parted from that sweet spot?

"A change we have found there-and many a change!
Faces, and footsteps, and all things strange!
Gone are the heads of the silvery hair,

And the young that were, have a brow of care,
And the place is hushed where the children played,
Nought looks the same, save the nest we made!"

Sad is your tale of the beautiful earth,
Birds that o'ersweep it, in power and mirth!
Yet through the wastes of the trackless air,
YE have a Guide, and shall we despair?
YE over desert and deep have pass'd,
So may we reach our bright home at last.

1. Explain the meaning of the epithets green and old as applied to Nile? 2. What was Sharon?

MRS. HEMANS.

3. Name some of the cities here r ferred to?

4. The prose order of this line?