The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin-cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare and tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and humming bees;

Then talked of the haying and wondered wheather
The clouds in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me? That I the Judge's bride might be !

"He would dress me up in silk so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day. "And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still.

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay:

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

"But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well, Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow
He watched a picture come and go :
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

"And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.'

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

The court nor cart I like nor loathe ; Extremes are counted worst of all; The golden mean betwixt them both Doth surest suit, and fears no fall; This is my choice; for why? I find No wealth is like a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;

My conscience clear my chief defence; I never seek by bribes to please, Nor by desert to give offence. Thus do I live, thus will I die; Would all did so well as I!

-William Byrd.

YOU wonder why my eyes are dim with tears!
Two shall I tell you? Long and long ago,

So long ago, years piled on weary years,
There was a little child I used to know.

And every day and night and every hour

We took life's gift together, sun and shade,
And saw the rainbow shining through the shower,
And heard the talk that building robins made.

We thought the world was ours to come and go
About its highways, finding treasures rare ;
We thought all heaven was ours, and fashioned so
Grand castle after castle high in air.

Ah, now I find the world a desert wild;
No room in all the sky for tower of mine,
But most of all I miss my comrade child,

Her brave, true courage and her faith divine.

Dead? changed? I know not, sweet; I only know
That something from the mirror's shining space
In my own features, worn and faded so,
I catch a glimmer of the bright lost face.

You will no longer wonder that I weep,

My little girl with eyes so grave and clear; Whatever treasures we may hold or keep, To lose one's happy self is saddest, dear. -Anonymous.

O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,

Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by ; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the
steep,

The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same that our fathers have been ;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,-
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course that our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking from, they too would
shrink,

To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling,
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but their story we cannot unfold,
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come
They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died,-ay! they died; and we things that are now
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings our transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain,
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the twinkle of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,-
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
-William Knox.

EHOLD this ruin! 'Twas a skull

Bonce of ethereal spirit full.

This narrow cell was Life's retreat;
This
space was Thought's mysterious seat,
What beauteous visions filled this spot?
What dreams of pleasure long forgot!
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear
Have left one trace of record here.

Beneath this mouldering canopy Once shone the bright and busy eye;

But start not at the dismal void,

If social love that eye employed,
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,

But through the dews of kindness beamed,
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and sun are sunk in night.

Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift and tuneful tongue :
If Falsehood's honey it disdained,

And when it could not praise was chained;