We may find it where a spring shines clear, beneath

an aged tree,

With the foxglove o'er the water's glass borne downwards by the bee;

Or where a swift and sunny gleam on the birchen stems is thrown,

As a soft wind playing parts the leaves, in copses green

and lone.

We

e may

find it in the winter boughs, as they cross the cold, blue sky,

While soft on icy pool and stream their pencilled sha

dows lie,

When we look upon their tracery, by the fairy frost

work bound,

Whence the flitting redbreast shakes a shower of crystals to the ground.

Yes! beauty dwells in all our paths—but sorrow too is

there;

How oft some cloud within us dims the bright, still summer air!

When we carry our sick hearts abroad amidst the joyous things,

That through the leafy places glance on many-coloured wings!

With shadows from the past we fill the happy wood

land shades,

And a mournful memory of the dead is with us in the

glades;

And our dream-like fancies lend the wind an echo's

plaintive tone

Of voices, and of melodies, and of silvery laughter gone.

But are we free to do ev'n thus-to wander as we willBearing sad visions through the grove, and o'er the breezy hill?

No! in our daily paths lie cares, that ofttimes bind

us fast,

While from their narrow round we see the golden day

fleet past.

They hold us from the woodlark's haunts, and violet dingles, back,

And from all the lovely sounds and gleams in the shining river's track;

They bar us from our heritage of spring-time, hope,

and mirth,

And weigh our burdened spirits down with the cumbering dust of earth.

Yet should this be?-Too much, too soon, despondingly we yield!

A better lesson we are taught by the lilies of the field! A sweeter by the birds of heaven-which tell us, in

their flight,

Of One that through the desert air for ever guides

them right.

Shall not this knowledge calm our hearts, and bid vain conflicts cease?

Ay, when they commune with themselves in holy hours

And feel that by the lights and clouds through which

our pathway lies,

By the beauty and the grief alike, we are training for the skies!

THE CROSS IN THE WILDERNESS.

SILENT and mournful sat an Indian chief,

In the red sunset, by a grassy tomb;

His eyes, that might not weep, were dark with grief,
And his arms folded in majestic gloom,

And his bow lay unstrung beneath the mound,
Which sanctified the gorgeous waste around.

For a pale cross above its greensward rose,

Telling the cedars and the pines that there Man's heart and hope had struggled with his woes, And lifted from the dust a voice of prayer.

Now all was hush'd-and Eve's last splendour shone With a rich sadness on th' attesting stone.