Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it,
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it,
But no foot of man e'er trod that way;
Earth was young and keeping holiday.

Monster fishes swam the silent main,

Stately forests waved their giant branches,
Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches,
Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain ;
Nature revelled in grand mysteries;
But the little fern was not of these,

Did not number with the hills and trees,
Only grew and waved its wild sweet way,
No one came to note it day by day.

Earth, one time, put on a frolic mood,

Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty

motion

Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean;

Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood, Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay, Covered it, and hid it safe away.

Oh, the long, long centuries since that day!

Oh, the agony, oh, life's bitter cost,

Since that useless little fern was lost!

Useless! Lost! There came a thoughtful man
Searching Nature's secrets, far and deep;
From a fissure in a rocky steep

He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran

Fairy pencillings, a quaint design,
Veinings, leafage, fibres clear and fine,
And the fern's life lay in every line!
So I think, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us the last day.

Dary Lowe Dickinson.

IF WE HAD BUT A DAY.

We should fill the hours with the sweetest things,
If we had but a day;

We should drink alone at the purest springs
In our upward way;

We should love with a lifetime's love in an hour,
If the hours were few;

We should rest, not for dreams, but for fresher

power

To be and to do.

We should guide our wayward or wearied wills By the clearest light;

We should keep our eyes on the heavenly hills, If they lay in sight;

We should trample the pride and the discontent Beneath our feet;

We should take whatever a good God sent,

With a trust complete.

We should waste no moments in weak regret,
If the day were but one ;

If what we remember and what we forget
Went out with the sun ;

We should be from our clamorous selves set free,
To work or to pray,

And to be what the Father would have us be,
If we had but a day.

Day Riley Smith.

1842.

IN PRISON.

God pity the wretched prisoners,
In their lonely cells to-day!
Whatever the sins that tripped them,
God pity them! still I say.

Only a strip of sunshine,
Cleft by rusty bars;

Only a patch of azure,
Only a cluster of stars;

Only a barren future,

To starve their hope upon;

Only stinging memories

Of a past that's better gone;

Only scorn from women,

Only hate from men, Only remorse to whisper

Of a life that might have been.

Once they were little children,
And perhaps their unstained feet
Were led by a gentle mother
Toward the golden street;

Therefore, if in life's forest

They since have lost their way, For the sake of her who loved them, God pity them! still I say.

O mothers gone to heaven!

With earnest heart I ask

That your eyes may not look earthward On the failure of your task.

For even in those mansions

The choking tears would rise, Though the fairest hand in heaven Would wipe them from your eyes!

And you, who judge so harshly,

Are you sure the stumbling-stone

That tripped the feet of others

Might not have bruised your own?

Are you sure the sad-faced angel
Who writes our errors down
Will ascribe to you more honor
Than him on whom you frown?

Or, if a steadier purpose
Unto your life is given;
A stronger will to conquer,
A smoother path to heaven;

If, when temptations meet you,
You crush them with a smile;

If you can chain pale passion

And keep your lips from guile;

Then bless the hand that crowned you, Remembering, as you go,

'T was not your own endeavor That shaped your nature so ;

And sneer not at the weakness
Which made a brother fall,
For the hand that lifts the fallen,
God loves the best of all!

And pray for the wretched prisoners
All over the land to-day,

That a holy hand in pity

May wipe their guilt away.