With all its careless days,
And world-unknowing ways;
Its guiltlessness of guile,—
Its sunny-hearted smile;
Its fearlessness of harm,-
Its trust which, like a charm,
Weak, but omnipotent,

Girds round the innocent;
So that a thousand fires
And lawless-born desires
Are powerless to assail,
Or come beyond the pale
Which nature's self has built
To ward off brutal guilt;
Round which no prowling sin
Dares more than glance within,
And, if it came to prey,
Slinks shamed and sad away!
Oh, weakness which the strong
Respect, and fear to wrong;
Oh, thou unworldly child,
Unstained and undefiled;
Whom angels must watch o'er,

If ever on this shore

They light and shut their wings,

In missioned wanderings,

From there where such pure worth

As thine is now, had birth,

And at thy tender side
By night and day abide,
Fond-watching, with such love
As natures born above
Can only know and feel,
Bestow, and yet conceal ;-
Attending on thy bed,

And following thy tread,

Till mind and soul enlarge,

And they may leave their charge.

Thou happy happy thing

Beyond imagining,

May Error never come

Where thou mak'st smiling home,

To sadden o'er that face,

Its Eden looks erase ;

Grave channels there for tears,

Where laughing life appears ;

Spread darkness over eyes
Where light luxuriant lies;
And by some evil wile
Thy purity defile;

But, from thy youth to age,
Upon this world's sad stage,
In innocence of heart,
Play still thy natural part ;—
Till heaven, that lent thee here,
To shew what mortals were,

After some pangs of pain,
Rejoicing take again

Thy soul, without a stain,

To its own proper sphere.

C. WEBBE.

BURIED FRIENDSHIP.

BY N. MITCHELL.

THE weary sun hath sunk in Ocean's breast;
Fast o'er the orient, clouds their shadows fling;
In the mute grove the cushat shuts her wing--
Yet lingering rays illuminate the west;
A trembling, beautiful, and chastened light,
That still reveals the rock and winding rill,
Paints every wood, and sleeps on every hill,
And softens down the frown of coming night.
Thus, in the sombre mansions of the dead
When those the heart loves best for ever lie,
Still with us dwells their lovely memory,
And sweetens e'en the bitter tears we shed,
Chases the pining soul's desponding gloom,
And weaves a halo round their dreary tomb.

PATIENTIA VICTRIX.

BY J. F. HOLLINGS.

LIFE hath a tedious strife to wage, where'er her path

may be,

Through cities towered, or wilds remote, or by the

rolling sea;

And countless are the foes that lurk her footsteps to

ensnare,

In ills with mastery over earth, and viewless powers of air.

Conqueress of all! from hour to hour yet speeds she on her way,

Through toil, and gloom, and weariness, and peril's stormiest day;

But little deem our heedless thoughts, where sheltered

from renown,

Her fairest victories are reaped, and gained her brightest

crown.

It is a task well recompensed, in Valour's fiery zeal, Before the sulph'rous battle's edge to dare the levelled

steel;