SUMMER GLADNESS.

WHAT a world with all its sorrows!
What a scene, would it but stay;
What an earth, if all its morrows
Were as fair as this "to-day!"

When earth's summer-pulse is beating With the fever-fire of June,

And the flowers fling up their greeting, Quivering to the joyous noon.

When the streamlet, smiling gladly,
Hurries calmly, brightly by,

Not a voice around speaks sadly,
Not a murmur nor a sigh.

Sunbeams, with their fond caresses,
Smooth each rosebud's velvet fold,
Lingering in the glowing tresses

Of yon rich laburnum's gold.

Nature all its gay adorning

Opens to the day's bright bliss, Like a child at early morning,

Wakened by its mother's kiss.

What a world

when all its sorrow

Shall for ever pass away!

What an earth! when each "to-morrow"

Shall be fairer than "to-day."

THE BLANK.

THE flowers of Spring have come and gone;
Bright were the blossoms, brief their stay ;
They shone, and they were shone upon,
They flourished, faded, passed away.
So, hidden from our sorrowing eyes,
Our young, sweet, spring-bloom buried lies;
One blast of earth swept o'er the flower,
It died, the blossom of an hour.

The Summer flowers are freshly blowing
Beneath glad July's genial morn ;

Like smiles the face of earth bestrowing,
For fragrance and for beauty born;
My summer-flower has passed away,
'Tis now a blank, where all was gay;
A blank, where at each evening's close,
I hoped to watch my budding rose.

Soon Autumn, with o'erflowing measure,
Will hang upon each bending tree
The clusters of its golden treasure,
The life of earth's vast family.
Alas, in one disastrous hour,

From my green vine has fallen the flower;
A blighted hue its branches wear,
My autumn-tree looks cold and bare.

And Winter, with its blast wide-roaming, In cloud and darkness shall come forth; Beneath its grave of snow entombing

The various verdure of the earth.

But my sweet blossom, safely laid,

Beneath yon cloister's solemn shade,
In gentle undisturbed repose,

Shall sleep in winter's

grave of snows.

CHOOSE WELL.

O quam dulce, quam jucundum
Erit tunc odisse mundum

Et quam triste, quam amarum
Mundum habuisse carum.

OLD HYMN.

O DEAD in sin!

Wilt thou still choose to die

The death of deaths eternally?

Dost thou not fear the gloom

Of the eternal tomb ?

O dead to life!

Wilt thou the life from heaven
Reject the life so freely given ;
Wilt thou choose sin and tears
Through everlasting years?

O dead to Christ!

Wilt thou despise the love

Of Him who stooped from joy above,
To shame on earth for thee,

That he might set thee free?