s pearl that is first unlocked
By Nature's mystic key,
From out the baby's jewel-box,
Makes mamma's jubilee.

The day of baby's mastership
To raise himself upright,
An era marks along the way,
By mother-love made light.

Her mother-voice lures on his step,
Her care protects from harm;
While deeper into her heart he glides,
With every opening charm.

And when he "ma-ma" sweetly says,
Or "pa-pa," in her breast
His throne is fixed forevermore,
This prince of babes confessed.

When threads of thought begin to spin,
And webs of mind to weave,
When kindling soul looks out at eyes
That know not to deceive,--

The mother's holiest task to keep
Her darling pure and true;
Her constant care, her watchful prayer,
Alone can guide him through

{244}

The maze his youthful feet must tread,
And if perchance he fall,
Her baby still in him she sees,
Her love can cover it all.

O, the wondrous love the baby brings,
Is far beyond our ken!
We only know that the fount once oped,
Can never be dry again.

* * * * *

_IT SNOWS! IT SNOWS!_

It snows! yes, it snows! and the children are wild,
At thought of the fun in the snow-drifts up-piled;
The boy with his first new boots is in sight,
And the wee baby-girl, with her mittens so bright.
They are tramping and tossing the snow as they run,
And laughing and shouting, so brimful of fun;
While the ten-year-old twins, in a somersault mood,
Have measured their length from the barn to the wood.
A dozen times, yes, or it may be a score,
Till their cheeks are as red as the roses, and more;
Then the elfin of twelve and the boy of fifteen,
Are pelting each other with snowballs so keen,
That we, who are older, forget to be staid, {245}
And shout, each with each, as the youngsters, arrayed
In feathery garments, press on or retreat,
Determined to win, nor acknowledge defeat,
And the snow tumbles down with such beauty and grace
That the air seems filled up with soft, bridal-veil lace,
Through whose meshes the sunbeams shall kiss Mother Earth,
Till the buds and the blossoms are bred into birth.
But the children, at length, tired out with their play,
And stamping the snow from their feet by the way,
Come slipping and stumbling and scrambling along,
While the big brother catching the baby-girl's song,
"Oh, my finders are told!" giv