r this is Susan's wedding-day.

3 Ah! gather flowers of sweetest hue,
Young violets from the bank's green side,
And on poor Mary's coffin strew,
For in the bloom of life she died.

4 So passes life! the smile, the tear,
Succeed, as in our path we stray,
Thy kingdom come, for we are here
As guests who tarry but a day.

* * * * *

THE CAGED BIRD.

Oh, who would keep a little bird confined,
When cowslip bells are nodding in the wind;
When every hedge as with "good morrow" rings,
And, heard from wood to coombe, the blackbird sings!
Oh! who would keep a little bird confined
In his cold wiry prison? Let him fly,
And hear him sing: How sweet is liberty!

* * * * *

THE DUTIFUL CHILD

READING THE STORY OF JOSEPH TO A SICK FATHER.

Brother and sister are a-Maying gone;
By my sick father's bed I watch alone;
Light in the sun, from field to field they roam,
To bring a cowslip-ball or May-thorn home;
I sit and read of Joseph, in the land
Of Egypt, when his guilty brothers stand
Before him--but they know him not; aside
He turns his face, the bursting tears to hide:
Scarce to these words an utterance can he give;
I am your brother Joseph! Doth he live,
My father, the old man of whom ye speak?
And tears are falling on my father's cheek.
Though my loved mother rests among the dead,
And pain and sickness visit this sad bed,
We think not, whilst we turn the holy page,
Of this vain world--of sorrow and of age!
And oh, my father, I am blessed indeed,
Blessed for your sake, that I have learned to read!

* * * * *

LITTLE MARY'S LINNET.

1 Dear Mary, if thy little bird
Should, all the winter long,
Pleased from the window to be heard,
Repay thee with a song;

2 A lesson let it still convey
To all with sense endued;
And such the voice, oh! let it say,
The still small voice of love.

* * * * *

THE SHEPHERD AND HIS DOG.

1 My dog and I are both grown old;
On these wild downs we watch all day;
He looks in my face when the wind blows cold,
And thus methinks I hear him say:

2 The gray stone circlet is below,
The village smoke is at our feet;
We nothing hear but the sailing crow,