Seek thy Saviour's flock,
To his blest fold going,
Seek that smitten rock

Whence our peace is flowing. Still should love rejoice,

Whatsoe'er betide thee,

If that Shepherd's voice

Evermore would guide thee.

TO A CHILD, SIX YEARS OLD, DURING

SICKNESS.

LEIGH HUNT.

SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,

My patient little boy;
And balmy rest about thee

Smooths off the day's annoy.

I sit me down and think

Of all thy winning ways;

Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,
That I had less to praise.

Thy sidelong pillowed meekness,
Thy thanks to all that aid,
Thy heart in pain and weakness,
Of fancied faults afraid;

The little trembling hand

That wipes thy quiet tears,

These, these are things that may

demand

Dread memories for years.

Sorrows I've had, severe ones,
I will not think of now,
And calmly, 'midst my dear ones,
Have wasted with dry brow;
But when thy fingers press
And pat my stooping head,
I cannot bear the gentleness,
The tears are in their bed.

Ah, first-born of thy mother,
When life and hope were new,
Kind playmate of thy brother,
Thy sister, father, too;
My light where'er I go,

My bird when prison-bound,
My hand-in-hand companion, no,
My prayers shall hold thee round.

To say, "He has departed,-
His voice his face, is gone,"

To feel impatient-hearted,

Yet feel we must bear on;

Ah, I could not endure

To whisper of such woe, Unless I felt this sleep ensure, That it will not be so.

Yes, still he's fixed and sleeping;

This silence too the while-
Its very hush and creeping,

Seem whispering us a smile ;-
Something divine and dim

Seems going by one's ear,

Like parting wings of cherubim,

Who say,

"We've finished here."

KING RICHARD III.

SHAKSPEARE.

[EXTRACT.]

“O THUS,” quoth Dighton, “lay the gentle babes."

Thus, thus," quoth Forrest, “girdling one another Within their alabaster innocent arms:

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

Which, in their summer beauty, kissed each other. A book of prayers on their pillow lay;

Which once," quoth Forrest, "almost changed my

mind;

66

But, O the devil!"-there the villain stopped;
When Dighton thus told on: We smothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That, from the prime creation, e'er she framed.”

A FOREST SCENE.

IN THE DAYS OF WICKLIFFE.

MARY HOWITT.

[EXTRACT.]

A LITTLE child, she read a book
Beside an open door,

And, as she read page after page,
She wondered more and more.

Her little finger gracefully

Went pointing out the place; Her golden locks hung drooping down And shadowed half her face.

The

open book lay on her knee,
Her eyes on it were bent;

And as she read page after page,
The colour came and went.

She sat upon a mossy stone,
At an open door beside;
And round for miles on every hand
Stretched out a forest wide.