SUMMER EVE.-WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, I am musing amid the clover, I stand in the fading sunlight Encrimsoned the clouds are reposing, To the playful breaths of heaven. The wild bee has turned from his roaming, Lone shadows steal over the valleys, The scarlet and green of the grasses Through the gloom of the wild morasses Cool mists up the mountain are stealing, The dews in the meadows are gleaming, The quiet of peace and rest. Of nature my spirit grows fonder Through many an eve of summer Her mystical shades I've pondered, The gray rocks were there, the mountain, Her mountains and cliffs are holy, O'er crags of the bounding sea; But darkness has come to the valley, And strains of the song and the sally To seek through the vista of shadow O day! there is naught in thy dreaming A light and serenity blending That numbers must leave untold; I have watched as the night's soft mantle The Lord is here in his temple, And silence is prayer and praise. THE POOR LITTLE BOY'S HYMN. A friend of mine, seeking for objects of charity, got into the upper room of a tenement-house. It was vacant. He saw a ladder pushed through the ceiling. Thinking that perhaps some poor creature had crept up there, he climbed the ladder, drew himself through the hole, and found himself under the rafters. There was no light but that which came through a bull's-eye in place of a tile. Soon he saw a heap of chips and shavings, and on them a boy about ten years old. "My boy, what are you doing here?" "Hush! don't tell anybody, please, sir." "But what are you doing here?" "Hush! please don't tell anybody, sir; I'm a-hiding." "What are you hiding from?" "Don't tell anybody, please, sir." "Where's your mother?" "Please, sir, mother's dead." "Where's your father?" "Hush! don't tell him, don't tell him! but look here!" He turned himself on his face, and through the rags of his jacket and shirt my friend saw that the boy's flesh was bruised and his skin was broken. "Why, my boy, who beat you like that?" "What did he beat you like that for?" "Father got drunk, sir, and beat me 'cos I wouldn't steal!" "Did you ever steal ?" "Yes, sir; I was a street thief once!" 'And why don't you steal any more?" "Please, sir, I went to the mission-school, and they told me there of God, and of heaven, and of Jesus; and they taught me 'Thou shalt not steal,' and I'll never steal again if my father kills me for it. But please, sir, don't tell him." "My boy; you must not stay here; you'll die. Now you wait patiently here for a little time; I'm going away to see a lady. We will get a better place for you than this." Thank you, sir; but please, sir, would you like to hear me sing a little hymn?" Bruised, battered, forlorn, friendless, motherless, hiding away from an infuriated father, he had a little hymn to sing. "Yes, I will hear you sing your little hymn." He raised himself on his elbow and then sang: "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child; Pity my simplicity, Suffer me to come to Thee. "Fain I would to Thee be brought, In the kingdom of Thy grace "That's the little hymn, sir; good-by." The gentleman went away, came back again in less than two hours and climbed the ladder. There were the chips and there were the shavings, and there was the boy, with one hand by his side, and the other tucked in his bosom underneath the little ragged shirt,-dead. THE BIRTH OF SAINT PATRICK.-SAMUEL LOV. On the eighth day of March it was, some people say, And some blamed the babby-and some blamed the clock- Now the first faction-fight in owld Ireland, they say, Some fought for the eighth,-for the ninth more would die, That each kept a birthday, so Pat then had two, Says he, "Boys, don't be fightin' for eight or for nine, 's that we know!" That, at least, he's worthy any two sa THE PILOT'S STORY.-W. D. HOWELLS. It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff, Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current, Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood, Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance. All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river, Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses |