And many a voice is calling—

A fond familiar tone,

From the glorious Church Triumphant, Around the Father's throne!

H. M. C.

CVIII. THE OFFERING.

I SEE them fading round me,
The beautiful, the bright,

As the rose-red lights that darken
At the falling of the night.

I had a lute, whose music

Made sweet the summer wind, But the broken strings have vanished, And no song remains behind.

I had a lovely garden,

Fruit and flowers on every bough, But the frost came too severely'Tis decayed and blighted now.

That lute is like my spirits,

They have lost their buoyant tone; Crushed and shattered, they've forgotten The glad notes once their own.

And my mind is like that garden,
It has spent its early store:
And wearied, and exhausted,
It has no strength for more.

I will look on them as warnings,
Sent less in wrath than love,

To call the being homeward—
To its other home above.

As the Lesbian, in false worship,

Hung her harp upon the shrine, When the world lost its attraction, So will I offer mine.

But in another spirit,

With a higher hope and aim,

And in a holier temple,

And to a holier name.

I offer up affections,

Void, violent, and vain ;

I offer years of sorrow,

Of the mind and body's pain.

I offer up my memory

'Tis a drear and darkened page, Where experience has been bitter, And whose youth has been like age.

I offer hopes, whose folly

Only after-thoughts can know, For, instead of seeking heaven,

They were chained to earth below!

Saying, wrong and grief have brought me
To Thine altar as a home;

I am sad and broken-hearted,
And therefore am I come.

Let the Incense of my sorrow
Be on high a sacrifice;
The worn and contrite spirit
Thou alone wilt not despise!

L. E. LANDON.

CIX. THE HAPPIEST TIME.

WHEN are we happiest? when the light of

morn

Wakes the young roses from their crimson

rest;

When cheerful sounds, upon the fresh winds borne,

Till man resumes his work with blither

zest;

While the bright waters leap from rock to

glen

Are we the happiest then?

Alas! those roses! they will fade away,

And thunder-tempests will deform the sky;

And summer-heats bid the spring-buds decay, And the clear sparkling fountain may be

dry;

And nothing beauteous may adorn the scene, To tell what has been!

Are we the happiest, when the evening hearth
Is circled with its crown of living flowers?
When goeth round the laugh of harmless mirth,
And when affection from her bright urn
showers

Her richest balm on the dilating heart?
Bliss! is it there thou art?

Oh no!—not there; it would be happiness
Almost like heaven's, if it might always be;
Those brows without one shading of distress,
And wanting nothing but eternity;
But they are things of earth, and pass away,
They must, they must decay.

Those voices must grow tremulous with years, Those smiling lips must wear a tinge of

gloom;

Those sparkling eyes be quenched in bitter tears,

And at the last close darkly in the tomb. If happiness depend on them alone,

How quickly is it gone!