"Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; With our faint hearts the mountain strives; Waits with its benedicite; And to our age's drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea." VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.-J. R. Lowell. Soft Force. "Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim. But while this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."- Shakespeare. "How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh, Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, A metaphor of peace: - all form a scene "All heaven and earth are still, though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; All heaven and earth are still: From the high host Of stars to the lulled lake, and mountain coast, All is concenter'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defence." — Byron. "How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine The desert-circle spreads, Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. "It is the hush of night, and all between Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more.”—Byron. "Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, A beauty and a mystery, and create In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star." "Now came still evening on, and Twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompanied: for beast and bird Ibid. They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, "Let us speak low, the Infant is asleep. Monarch of the Day and Night, Whisper, yet it is not light, The Infant is asleep. Milton. "Those arms shall crush great serpents ere to-morrow, His lips shall curl with mirth and writhe with sorrow, Our vigils; visions cross his rest, Prophetic pulses stir his breast, Although he be asleep." THE BIRTH OF THE YEAR. Frederick Tennyson. "'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds In mournful cadences that come abroad Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year Gone from the Earth forever." THE DIRGE OF THE YEAR. - G. D. Prentice. The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. "But peaceful was the night Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began; The winds, with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kissed, Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave." HYMN ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY. - Milton. "Hearken, hearken! God speaketh in thy soul! Saying, 'O thou that movest With feeble paces o'er this earth of mine, To break beside the fount thy golden bowl Filled with salt tears from out thy mournful eyne,— In an eternal grasping! Thou that lovest And eke what tombs shall hide and change pollute-. I am the end of love! —give love to me! O thou that sinnest, grace doth more abound "Hearken! hearken. Shall we hear the lapsing river And not the voice of God?" SOUNDS. Mrs. Browning. "Ascension morn! I hear the bells Ring from the village far away; The mystic story of the day! That heaven's bright door is shut for me. Which falls alike on field and fen, Comes the wide summons to the true, The false, the best and worst of men." "Hush! is he sleeping? BOTHWELL.-Aytoun. They say that men have slept upon the cross; save So why not he? . . . Thanks, Lord! I hear him breathe: - say how I loved him, Oh Lord! And tried to damn him by that love! ST. MAURA. - Kingsley. "Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, |