SUMMER EVE.—WILLIAM WHITEHEAD.

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I am musing amid the clover,

And watching the waning day; Watching and waiting as over

The lowlands the shadows play; The hillside reposes in glory,

Emerald and crimson and gold,
And meadows are hearing the story

Rivulets sang them of old.
I stand in the fading sunlight

Where gloweth the genial day,
As steps of the coming twilight

Are threading their quiet way;
Lone flowers the winds are caressing,

As gently they wander by;
And stars are coming with blessing

From depths of a holier sky.
Encrimsoned the clouds are reposing,

Fair islands of love and light, And their beauty is calmly closing,

Awaiting the dream of night; And slowly as the day is dying

In the folding arms of even, The pine-tops are wildly sighing

To the playful breaths of heaven. The wild bee has turned from his roaming,

And the jay where stillness reigns; The thrush has no song for the gloaming,

And only the dove complains; Lone shadows steal over the valleys,

With pencilling rays between;
And nymphs from the forest alleys

Retire with the parting beam.
The scarlet and green of the grasses

Are hid in the sombre gray;
Through the gloom of the wild morasses

The fire-fly lights his way;
Cool mists up the mountain are stealing,

Veiling the oaks in their haze,
And sounds in the woods are revealing

Measures of solitude's ways.

The dews in the meadows are gleaming,

As light softly dyes the west;
And over the streamlets is teeming

The quiet of peace and rest.
From haunts of the silent and holy,

From caves of the night and gloom,
With spiritual steppings and slowly,

The shadows of evening come.
Of nature my spirit grows fonder

As I gaze o'er her flowery sod,
As I pause by her streams and ponder

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The wonderful things of God.
Nor vainly her shades I've awaited

To list to the voice of night;
My musings with her are mated,

With her there's a calm delight. Through many an eve of summer

I've roamed o'er the fruitful earth;
I've worshiped her as a mother

For all of her beauteous birth;
I love her when dayspring blesses,

When her hill-tops hail the sun;
When wrapped in her ebon tresses

As toils of the day are done.
Her mystical shades I've pondered,

Through the forest’s moon-lit way,
As the night bird's flute-notes wandered

In ecstasy's varied play. The gray rocks were there, the mountain,

The purl of the winding stream;
And I lingered beside the fountain,

Forgetful of life's sad dream.
Her mountains and cliffs are holy,

The solitudes charm her vales;
She has sooth for the sad and lowly

When darkness o'er life prevails; She has music forever dying

O'er crags of the bounding sea;
And her woodlands are ever sighing

In silvery chords to me.
But darkness has come to the valley,

Gently as bird to her nest;

And strains of the song and the sally

Are hushed in earth's hour of rest;
I've mused o'er the slope and the meadow

To learn the wisdom of night;
To seek through the vista of shadow

Life's lesson to read aright.
O day! there is naught in thy dreaming

So sweet as the star-lit hour!
No moments of thine so teeming

With love and its silent power!
But brighter than love's emotion

Night teaches a faith oft told;
That asketh a holier devotion

Whilst reading her page of gold.
I have watched the day to its ending

In beauty and floods of gold;
A light and serenity blending

That numbers must leave untold;
I have watched as the night's soft mantlo

Enfolded the dying rays;
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 ?”

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* 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 rays 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?” “Father did, sir!" “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,
Gracious Lord, forbid it not,
In the kingdom of Thy grace

Give a little child a place.”
" 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.

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THE BIRTII OF SAINT PATRICK.-SAMUEL Lovra. On the eighth day of March it was, some people say, That Saint Patrick at midnight he first saw the day; While others declare 'twas the ninth he was born, And 'twas all a mistake between midnight and morn; For mistakes will occur in a hurry and shock, And some blamed the babby-and some blamed the clockTill with all their cross-questions sure no one could know If the child was too fast, or the clock was too slow. Now the first faction-fight in owld Ireland, they say, Was all on account of Saint Patrick's birthday. Some fought for the eighth,-for the ninth more would die, And who wouldn't see right, sure they blackened his eye! At last, both the factions so positive grew, That each kept a birthday, so Pat then had two, Till Father Mulcahy, who showed them their sins, Said, “No one could have two birthdays, but a twins." Says he, “Boys, don't be fightin' for eight or for nine, Don't be always dividin'—but sometimes combine; Combine eight with nine, and seventeen is the mark, . So let that be his birthday,”—“Amen,” says the clerk. “If he wasn't a twins, sure our hists will show That, at least, he's worthy any two su ts that we know !" Then they all got blind dhrunk-which complated their bliss, And we keep up the practice from that day to this.

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 In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus.