himself that it was brighter and more excellent than it was? Perhaps
the answer, yes, might be returned to all these questions; but yet I
fear the chief burden of deceit would rest with imagination, and that
man would ever find he had judged of the future without sufficient
grounds, and had suffered desire to stimulate hope, and hope to cheat
expectation. Yet, perhaps, if he would but turn back and look behind,
when disappointment and success had been obtained together, he would
find that the pleasures lasted in the pursuit, especially at the time
when fruition was drawing nearer and nearer, would, in the sum, make
up the amount of enjoyment which he had anticipated in possession.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

A DREAM OF SUMMER.

Bland as the morning breath of June
The south-west breezes play;
And through its haze the winter noon
Seems warm as summer day.
The snow-plumed angel of the north
Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hill-side cell forsakes,
The muskrat leaves his nook,
The blue-bird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
"Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free,
"Our winter voices prophesy
Of summer days to thee!"
So in the winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear,
O'erswept, from memory's frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear,
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And low beneath the winter's snow
Lie gems of summer flowers.

The night is mother of the day,
The winter of the spring,
And ever upon old decay
The greenest mosses cling;
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all his works,
Has left his Hope with all.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "GRANTLEY MANOR."

SILENCE.

What a strange power there is in _silence_! How many resolutions are
formed--how many sublime conquests effected during that pause, when
the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker
upon her! When some of those cutting, sharp, blighting words have been
spoken which send the hot indignant blood to the face and head, if
those to whom they are addressed keep silence, look on with awe, for a
mighty work is going on within them, and the Spirit of Evil, or their
Guardian