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BLESSINGS ON CHILDREN.

Lacking every creed yet having faith so large in all they see,
That to know is still to gladden, and 'tis rapture but to be.
What trim fancies bring them flowers; what rare spirits walk their wood,
What a wondrous world the moonlight harbours of the gay and good!
Unto them the very tempest walks in glories grateful still,

And the lightning gleams, a seraph, to persuade them to the hill:
'Tis a sweet and loving spirit, that throughout the midnight rains,
Broods beside the shutter'd windows, and with gentle love complains;
And how wooing, how exalting, with the richness of her dyes,
Spans the painter of the rainbow, her bright arch along the skies,
With a dream like Jacob's ladder, showing to the fancy's sight,
How 'twere easy for the sad one to escape to worlds of light!
Ah! the wisdom of such fancies, and the truth in every dream,
That to faith confiding offers, cheering every gloom, a gleam!
Happy hearts, still cherish fondly each delusion of your youth,
Joy is born of well believing, and the fiction wraps the truth.

WILLIS.

'UNSEEN SPIRITS.

THE shadows lay along Broadway"Twas near the twilight-tide

And slowly there a lady fair

Was walking in her pride. Alone walked she; but, viewlessly, Walked spirits at her side.

Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,
And Honour charmed the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair—
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true-

For her heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to woo-

But honoured well are charms to sell

If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was one more fair

A slight girl, lily-pale;

And she had unseen company

To make the spirit quail

"Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,

And nothing could avail.

LITTLE FLORENCE GRAY.

No mercy now can clear her brow
For this world's peace to pray;
For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way!—

But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
By man is curst alway!

LITTLE FLORENCE GRAY.

I WAS in Greece. It was the hour of noon,
And the Egean wind had dropped asleep
Upon Hymettus, and the thymy isles

Of Salamis and Egina lay hung

Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sca.
I had climbed up th' Acropolis at morn,
And hours had fled as time will in a dream

Amid its deathless ruins-for the air

Is full of spirits in these mighty fanes,

And they walk with you! As it sultrier grew,

I laid me down within a shadow deep

Of a tall column of the Parthenon,
And in an absent idleness of thought

I scrawled upon the smooth and marble base.
Tell me, O memory, what wrote I there?
The name of a sweet child I knew at Rome!

I was in Asia. 'Twas a peerless night Upon the plains of Sardis, and the moon, Touching my eyelids through the wind-stirred tent, Had witched me from my slumber. I arose, And silently stole forth, and by the brink

Of golden "Pactolus," where bathe his waters

The bases of Cybele's columns fair,

I paced away the hours.

In wakeful mood

I mused upon the storied past awhile,

Watching the moon, that with the same mild eye
Had looked upon the mighty Lybian kings
Sleeping around me-Croesus, who had heaped
Within the mouldering portico his gold,
And Gyges, buried with his viewless ring
Beneath yon swelling tumulus-and then
I loitered up the valley to a small
And humbler ruin, where the undefiled*
Of the Apocalypse their garments kept
Spotless; and crossing with a conscious awe
The broken threshold, to my spirit's eye
It seemed as if, amid the moonlight, stood
"The angel of the church of Sardis" still!
And I again passed onward, and as dawn
Paled the bright morning star, I lay me down,
Weary and sad, beside the river's brink,
And 'twixt the moonlight and the rosy morn,
Wrote with my fingers in the golden "sands.”
Tell me, O memory! what wrote I there?
The name of the sweet child I knew at Rome !

The dust is old upon my "sandal-shoon,"
And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved
From wild America to spicy Ind,
And worshipped at innumerable shrines
Of beauty, and the painter's art, to me,
And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue,
And of dead kingdoms, I recall the soul,

Sitting amid their ruins. I have stored

* "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy."-REV.

iii. 4.

LITTLE FLORENCE GRAY.

My memory with thoughts that can allay
Fever and sadness; and when life gets dim,
And I am overladen in my years,

Minister to me. But when wearily

The mind gives over toiling, and, with eyes
Open but seeing not, and senses all
Lying awake within their chambers fine,

Thought settles like a fountain, clear and calm---
Far in its sleeping depths, as 'twere a gem,
Tell me, O memory! what shines so fair?
The face of the sweet child I knew at Rome!

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