and was o'er.

THE YEAR'S END

SO grows the rising year, and so declines
By months, weeks, days, unto its peaceful end
Even as by slow and ever-varying signs
Through childhood, youth, our solemn steps we bend
Up to the crown of life, and thence descend.

Great Father, who of every one takest care,
From him on whom full ninety years are piled
To the young babe, just taught to lisp a prayer
About the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,"
Who children loves, being once himself a child,--

O make us day by day like Him to grow;
More pure and good, more dutiful and meek;
Because He loves those who obey Him so;
Because His love is the best thing to seek,
Because without His love, all loves are weak,--

All earthly joys are miserable and poor,
All earthly goodness quickly droops and dies,
Like rootless flowers you plant in gardens--sure
That they will flourish--till in mid-day skies
The sun burns, and they fade before your eyes.

O God, who art alone the life and light
Of this strange world to which as babes we come,
Keep Thou us always children in Thy sight:
Guide us from year to year, thro' shine and gloom
And at our year's end, Father, take us home.

RUNNING AFTER THE RAINBOW

"WHY thus aside your playthings throw,
Over the wet lawn hurrying so?
Where are you going, I want to know?"
"I'm running after the rainbow."

"Little boy, with your bright brown eyes
Full of an innocent surprise,
Stop a minute, my Arthur wise,
What do you want with the rainbow?"

Arthur paused in his headlong race,
Turned to his mother his hot, young face,
"Mother, I want to reach the place
At either end of the rainbow.

"Nurse says, wherever it meets the ground.
Such beautiful things may oft be found
Buried below, or scattered round,
If one can but catch the rainbow.

"O please don't hinder me, mother dear,
It will all be gone while I stay here;"
So with many a hope and not one fear,
The child ran after the rainbow.

Over the damp grass, ankle deep,
Clambering up the hilly steep,
And the wood where the birds were going to sleep,
But he couldn't catch t