Sense looks downwards, Faith above;
That sees harshness-this sees love.
Oh let Faith victorious be,
Let it reign triumphantly!

But thou art gone! not lost, but flown.
Shall I then ask thee back, my own?
Back-and leave thy spirit's brightness?
Back-and leave thy robes of whiteness?
Back-and leave thine angel mould?
Back-and leave those streets of gold?
Back-and leave the Lamb who feeds thee?
Back-from founts to which he leads thee?
Back-and leave thy heavenly Father?
Back-to earth and sin ?-Nay, rather
Would I live in solitude!

I would not ask thee if I could;
But patient wait the high decree,
That calls my spirit home to thee!

Extracted from the "Floweret Gathered."

THE LOST DARLING.

SHE was my idol. Night and day to scan
The fine expression of her form, and mark
The unfolding mind like vernal rose-bud start
To sudden beauty, was my chief delight.
To find her fairy footsteps following me,

Her hand upon my garments, or her lip

Close sealed to mine, and in the watch of night
The quiet breath of innocence to feel

Soft on my cheek, was such a full content
Of happiness as none but mothers know.

Her voice was like some tiny harp that yields
To the light-fingered breeze; and as it held
Brief converse with her doll, or kindly soothed
Her moaning kitten, or with patient care
Conned o'er the alphabet—but most of all
Its tender cadence in her evening prayer—
Thrilled on the ear like some ethereal tone
Heard in sweet dreams. But now alone I sit,
Musing of her, and dew with mournful tears
The little robes that once with woman's pride
I wrought, as if there were a need to deck
A being formed so beautiful. I start,

Half fancying from her empty crib there comes

A restless sound, and breathe the accustomed

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words

Hush, hush, Louisa, dearest!"—then I weep,

As though it were a sin to speak to one

Whose home is with the angels.

Gone to God!

And yet I wish I had not seen the pang
That wrung her features, nor the ghostly white
Setting around her lips. I would that heaven

Had taken its own, like some transplanted flower,

In all its bloom and freshness.

Gone to God!

Be still, my heart! What could a mother's prayer, In all the wildest ecstasy of hope,

Ask for its darling like the bliss of heaven?

MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

THE REAPER.

THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death,

And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have nought that is fair,” saith he; "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again.”

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves:

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

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My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled; "Dear tokens of the earth are they,

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Where he was once a child.

They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day ;
'T was an angel visited the green
And took the flowers away.

earth

LONGFELLOW.

THE WANDERER RECLAIMED.

A SHEPHERD long had sought in vain
To call a wandering sheep:
He strove to make its pathway plain
Through dangers thick and deep.

But yet the wanderer stood aloof,
And still refused to come;
Nor would she ever hear reproof,
Or turn to seek her home.

At last the gentle shepherd took
Her little lamb from view!

The mother gazed with anguished look-
She turned-and followed too!

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THE ALPINE SHEEP.

AFTER our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of death
Like a long twilight haunting lay,

And friends came round with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,

This story of the Alpine sheep

Was told to us by one we love :—

They, in the valley's sheltering care,

Soon crop the meadow's tender prime; And when the sod grows brown and bare,

The shepherd strives to make them climb