Ah, take them first, my Father, and then me!
And for their sakes, for their sweet sakes, my

Father,

Let me find rest beside them, at thy feet!

Frances S. Osgood.

THE WIDOW'S WOOER.

HE wooes me with those honeyed words
That women love to hear;
Those gentle flatteries that fall

So sweet on every ear.

He tells me that my face is fair ·

Too fair for grief to shade;

My cheek, he says, was never meant

He stands beside me, when I sing

The songs of other days,

And whispers in love's thrilling tones,
The words of heartfelt praise;

And often in my eyes he looks,
Some answering love to see, —
In vain! he there can only read
The faith of memory.

He little knows what thoughts awake
With every gentle word;

How, by his looks and tones, the founts
Of tenderness are stirred.

The visions of my youth return;
Joys far too bright to last,

And while he speaks of future bliss,
I think but of the past..

Like lamps in Eastern sepulchres,
Amid my heart's deep gloom,
Affection sheds its holiest light

Upon my husband's tomb.

And, as those lamps, if brought once more

To upper air, grow dim,

So my soul's love is cold and dead,

Unless it glow for him.

Emma C. Embury.

ABSENCE.

WHAT shall I do with all the days and hours
That must be counted ere I see thy face?
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense-
Weary with longing? Shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
Cheat myself to forget the present day?

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin

Of casting from me God's great gift of time? Shall I, these mists of memory locked within, Leave and forget life's purposes sublime?

O, how, or by what means, may I contrive
To bring the hour that brings thee back more
near?

How may I teach my drooping hope to live
Until that blesséd time, and thou art here?

I'll tell thee; for thy sake I will lay hold

Of all good aims, and consecrate to thee, In worthy deeds, each moment that is told While thou, beloved one, art far from me.

For thee I will arouse my thoughts to try

All heavenward flights, all high and holy strains; For thy dear sake I will walk patiently

Through these long hours, nor call their minutes pains.

I will this dreary blank of absence make
A noble task-time; and will therein strive
To follow excellence, and to o'ertake

More good than I have won since yet I live.

So may this doomed time build up in me

A thousand graces, which may thus be thine; So may my love and longing hallowed be, And thy dear thought an influence divine.

Frances Anne Kemble.

THE MOTHER IN THE SNOW STORM.

Suggested by a real incident that occurred in the Green Mountains, Vermont.

THE cold winds swept the mountain's height,
And pathless was the dreary wild;
And, 'mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child.
As through the drifting snow she pressed,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.

And colder still the winds did blow,
And darker hours of night came on,

And deeper grew the drifts of snow ;Her limbs were chilled, her strength was gone. "O God!" she cried, in accents wild,

"If I must perish, save my child!"

She stripped her mantle from her breast,
And bared her bosom to the storm,

And round the child she wrapped the vest,

And smiled to think her babe was warm.
With one cold kiss one tear she shed,
And sunk upon a snowy bed.

At dawn a traveller passed by,
And saw her 'neath a snowy veil;
The frost of death was in her eye,

Her cheek was cold, and hard, and pale.
He moved the robe from off the child-
The babe looked up and sweetly smiled!