ON FRIENDSHIP. There is a magic in the spell That flows from lips we love so well: Our finest, fondest, feelings tend No selfish passion enters where, United, these a lustre lend Which circles round the name of Friend. Distrustful feelings are not known Where friendship gives the mind its tone- No bond to fetter or enthral : Pure as the gem from mountain riven, 71 72 SILENCE IN HEAVEN. How dear, yet fleeting, are those ties, M. SILENCE IN HEAVEN. ["And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour!"-Rev. viii. 1.] Silence in Heaven! where angel throngs Their hallelujahs raise; And ransom'd Saints in grateful songs Silence-where stars, as on they roll'd, Made song their glad employ, SILENCE IN HEAVEN. Silence in Heaven! where harp and voice, In anthems of applause, Might EVERLASTINGLY rejoice, And need no silent pause. Yet even there-a pause was known! And silence with its breathless tone, May not the fact a lesson teach To us on earth below? That, more than music, song, or speech, Oh! if thou THUS hast learnt His Will, And find in silent worship, still, Thanksgiving, praise, and prayer! 73 B. BARTON. Let usefulness and beneficence, not ostentation and vanity, direct the train of thy pursuits. 74 THE DYING GIRL AND FLOWERS. THE DYING GIRL AND FLOWERS. ["I desire, as I look on these, the ornaments and children of earth, to know whether, indeed, such things I shall see no more? Whether they have no likeness, no archetype in the world in which my future home is to be cast? Or whether they have their images above, only wrought in a more wondrous and delightful mould."---Conversations with a student in ill health.] Bear them not from grassy dells, Kindred to the breeze they are, Spread them not before the eyes, With the bright things which have birth Wide o'er all the coloured earth! THE DYING GIRL AND FLOWERS. With the violet's breath would rise, Dreams too sweet would haunt her bed; Hush! 'tis thou that dreaming art, Calmer is her gentle heart. Yes! o'er fountain, vale, and grove, Types of lovelier forms than these, Therefore, in the lily's leaf She can read no word of grief; 75 |