It buzzed upon his lovely cheek,

With joy to own so sweet a prey.
Her heart was grit, she could not speak,
And scarce could drive the fly away.

And yet, alas! it could not harm-
To this all beauty comes at last,
The maggot, fly, and loathsome worm
On all must get their just repast.

From Johnny's timeless fate take heed,
And never let vain flies decoy ;
Ambition! wealth! are flies indeed,
Which only lure you to destroy.

But if we keep God's sacred laws,
And true religion guide us on,
The higher that we climb His cause,

We'll greater be,-when Time is gone!

THE POWER OF LOVE AND SIN.

The pleasures of the body were truly called by Plato, "the allurements and baits to evil.”

"Look, here comes one, who, falling in the flames of her own youth, hath blistered her report."--Shakespeare.

"Thou knowest, in the days of innocence, Adam fell; so what could poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villany?"-Ibid.

MANY a Prosperina gathers flowers,

And spend in innocence unguarded hours ;—
Until, beheld by Passion's evil eyes,
Then Satan fast to their destruction flies!

In vain then Venus and her nymphs will rush
With outspread arms to hide the native blush,
For even Virtue, if it tempts Desire,
Can't always quench its own inherent fire!
Ambition only outsoars Cupid's dove,
For Cæsar fled from Cleopatra's love,-

Yet, at the last, he lived and died her slave,
Sad proof that Passion can unman the brave!

Mark Antony also, as brave a man, became the enamoured slave of Cleopatra.

Р

THE CROUP.

"Though death is before the old man's face, he may be as near the young man's back." Nay!

"Whithersoever thou goest, death follows as a shadow follows a body." Ay! and "it waits upon life as surely as night upon day, or the shadow upon the sunbeam, though we know not when or from whence it is to come upon us." "There is no flock, however watched and tended,

Then

But one dead lamb is there,

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair."

"Let us be patient! severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial Benedictions

Assume this dark disguise."-Longfellow.

"Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must weep:
Thus runs the world away."-Hamlet.

AULD Winter's snaw had thawed awa',

CAULD

And cheerful Spring had come again;
For blythe the birdies sang through a',
And lilted owre ilk knowe and glen.

Again the gowans decked the lea,

And purple heath began to bloom;
Again the little busy bee

With humming, broke the wintry gloom;

Again the foxglove's dappled throat
Gave beauty to the darkest dell,

While hazel tassels fringed ilk moat,
And primrose kissed the mild harebell.

So, like the rose and purple heath,
My little William glinted forth,
And gleesome eyed the verdant wreath
That chased away the frozen north.

Nae blyther lambie frisked the lea,

Nor fairer bloomed the opening flower;

Nae sweeter birdie graced the tree,

Nor fonder heart in lady's bower.

How proud his mother led him past,
And on May gow'nies placed his foot,
With fondest hopes that Spring at last
Had broken fell disease's root.

But, ah! we little know the fate

Which heaven, in mercy, hides from man,
One rooky evening,-cold and late,
With fatal haste his sister ran.

Upon the beach she gathered shells,
And, thoughtless, caught the tiny crab,
While Willie viewed the rippling bells,
And shivered on the sleety slab.

That evening, at my wonted walk,
I spied my little William there,
He was so cold he scarce could talk-
While I could scarcely breathe a prayer.
Too well I knew the deadly power

Which lurks beneath the eastern harr;
I feared that from that evil hour

A cloud would hide my morning star.

I snatched him up, and hastened home,
And bathed his feet, and sent to bed;
But ah! the blighting blast had come,
The stem was broke, the bloom had fled.

Like blighted bud upon the tree,

Or blasted flower, wee William lay; Nae mair again to tread the lea,

Nae mair with gowans gleeful play.

He died, and as I saw him droop,
O God! the agony I bore,
To see how sure the fatal croup

Was crushing life through every pore.

Even now I see his struggling arm,

And wild, unearthly pleading eye!Yet Heaven but snatched from further harm, And now sweet William blooms on high.

THE PROUD NOT THE BEST.

"Oh! fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long-
Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong."-Longfellow.

"The way is long, my children, long and rough,
The moors are dreary, and the woods are dark;
But he that creeps from cradle on to grave
Unskilled save in the velvet course of fortune

Hath missed the discipline of noble hearts."-Old Play.

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn,

Good and ill together; our virtues would be proud,
If our faults whipped them not; and our crimes

Would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues."

Shakespeare.

"I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter."-Ibid.

"I have seen the wicked man flourish in his power, even like unto a laurel but I returned and he was not--yea, I sought him, but he was not to be found.' -- Holy Writ.

BEHOLD yon poor and careworn man,

So calmly struggling 'gainst his adverse fate,
Though 'whelmed by ills, he scorns to quit the van,
Or yield to sin, or fear the little great.

Ah no! too well he knows the chastening rod
Which struck his darling wife, and children three,
Between each stroke he saw the hand of God,

He bows his head and says, "So let it be !"
Thrice-happy man, if stripes like these can save,
And wean from vice and worldly vanity,
To rise a king with glory from the grave,
And live with God throughout eternity.
What is to him the adverse power of man?
To him what is the patronage of pride?
Which cannot o'er a single moment span,

While God can o'er eternity preside.
He recks, not he, nor fears the pompous, vain,
Nor idle scoff, nor frowning brow doth heed;
These fall beneath him, just like April rain,

And help to bathe and soothe his withered mead.
Though low his mien, his mind is towering high,
Far, far above their petty, worldly dreams;
On angel's wings, unseen, it cleaves the sky,

And, like the eagle, sees Truth's brightest beams.

A good man never will the poor insult,
of weak old age,

the away

prop

Nor knock
'Tis only reptiles that will e'er exult,
And spend on poverty a viper's rage.

Such souls would cringe, like curs, to higher rank,
But act the lion to the 'fenceless lamb,
And stab an equal in the rear or flank,
Yet basely fly before a bold-faced ram.

True nobleness of soul is never found

Beneath the pompous or pretentious coat,-
Wherever boasting and pretence abound,

'Tis there the braggart swells his empty throat.

The bird which soars upon the highest wing,

With modest plumage sweeps the meadows round,
And though it makes the very welkin ring,
Has still her nest upon the lowly ground.

The sweetest warbler of the thorny glade
Yet shuns the glare and hum of bustling day,
And sweetly sings within the silent shade
When noisy babblers all have slunk away.

No gaudy hue the busy bee adorns,

Nor wasp-like form to please the wanton eye-
The sweetest rose is hedged around with thorns,
And gaudiest poppies will the soonest die.

And what is man, for all his proud array,

When, jackdaw-like, he struts in borrowed pride?
But gilded loam-the creature of a day—

A bubble floating down Time's silent tide.

The humblest mind which inward leans on God,
Will rise in glory to a glorious reign!

Go then, be wise! and humbly bear life's load,

For man's chief end on earth, is heaven to gain !

"Shall I weigh the loss of life, a commodity always so uncertain, against the chance of that immortality which will survive in my lay after my broken voice and shivered harp shall no longer be able either to express tune or accompany tale?" So said Sir Walter Scott, who may be said to have died in harness, nobly struggling to extricate the carriage of his worldly means from the quagmire of insolvency, and as nobly succeeded, though at the expense of shortening his earthly existence. In his introduction to "Quentin Durward" he says: "There is enough of the leaf left for the caterpillar to coil up his chrysalis, and what needs he care though reptiles have devoured the rest of the bush?"