And beautiful as truth; Such hast thou seen sink 'neath the arm of Death, As fall the flowers beneath the north wind's breath. And gladder things than these Thou hast looked on;-the bridal's jocund dance, The merry song, the young bride's timid glance, Smiles bright as sun-lit seas; And thou hast seen the mother watch the dawn Of reason on the face of her first born. Pass on, Old Year! with all Thy good and evil, and thy joy and wo; A single by-gone act; then onward speed, And think upon thee too, And through the journeyings of their coming years, From thee shall date their sorrows, crimes and tears; To bless thee, weep thee, rue; For e'er embalmed in many a throbbing heart, To cheer or madden it, Old Year! thou art. CHILDHOOD. "The season of the spring dawns like the morning, Of gaudy sights." Ford's Sun's Darling. O CHILDHOOD! back on thy summer days, As when life was young we strained our gaze, And each dream of thy quiet and musing hours, We looked in the world for a warmer love, Have we ever found aught to bless Our life, so sweet as a mother's kiss, In our grief and our gladness we see you smile A whispered tone may illumine all A flower-a bird-or the laughing call Glad visions, ye come! ye come! and again And we dance light as fays on the moon-lit plain, And tones loved of old in our ears are ringing, And there beam upon us remembered eyes, And nature again is over us flinging The spell of her mysteries. Again in blue skies and green fields we rejoice, And the flowers shine in colors more deep, And we list to the swift brook that lent its low voice, To the dreams of our childhood's sleep. And we hail as a friend, each remembered thing CHILDHOOD. 31 Which a place in our hearts once found, Though it sail through the sky upon burnished wing, Or creep on the lowly ground. Ye have flown! ye have flown! as swift as spring day Flew by in your own glad time. We know friends must die-but blue skies, are not they The same in our childhood and prime? Alas! still as fairly swell o'er us the skies, Earth hath changed not around or above; But we read not with open untutored eyes, Its lessons of wisdom and love. Take back, then, each lesson of idle lore, We have learned of the school man's art; THE LADY ARABELLA JOHNSON was the daughter of the Earl of Lincoln; and though possessed of wealth, rank and beauty which entitled her to an alliance with the proudest of England's nobility, she, with a strength of mind at once rare and admirable, became the wife of a Puritan, and following him to this country, died at Salem soon after her arrival. UPON an humble couch laid low, An angel form reclines, her brow Though wasted is that form, once fair, |