HOW CHEERY ARE THE MARINERS! Park Benjamin. How cheery are the mariners Those lovers of the sea! Their hearts are like its yesty waves, As bounding and as free. They whistle when the storm-bird wheels What care the mariners for gales? The vessel stout will ride it out, Nor reel beneath the blow. With streamers down and canvass furled, A silken-tasselled boat; God keep those cheery mariners! That sweep against the rocky coast, To their storm-shattered sails; That could so guided be, Safe in the hollow of His hand, To brave the mighty sea! WEARINESS Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth Finds the down pillow hard. Shakspeare. THE GOLDEN KEY-A PARABLE. G. Macdonald. NIGHT'S drooping flags were slowly furled; The sun arose in joy; The boy awoke, and all the world Was waiting for the boy. And out he ran. Lo! everywhere Was full of windy play; The earth was bright and clear and fair, The hill said 'Climb me ;' and the wood, I'm full of gambols; they are good, He went, he ran. Dark grew the skies, 'How soon,' he said, 'for clouds to rise The wind grew wild. A wilful power, The boy exulted for an hour, Then sat with head bowed down. And as he sat the rain began, And rained till all was still : He looked, and saw a rainbow span He dried his tears. 'Ah! now,' he said, But ere, through wood or over fence, The rainbow's foot was lifted thence, And planted in the vale. 'But here it stood. Yes here,' he said, Its very foot was set; I saw this fir-tree through the red, He sought and sought, while down the skies Low radiant clouds of level red 'So near me yet! Oh happy me, He rose, he ran, as yet in play, And as the last red streak grew gray His father stroked his drooping head, He folded then his weary hands, And so they let them be; And ere the morn, in rainbow lands, He found the golden key. THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW. Moore. THIS world is all a fleeting show And false the light on glory's plume, And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom, There's nothing bright but Heaven! Poor wanderers of a stormy day, From wave to wave we're driven, THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE.-Aytoun. COME hither, Evan Cameron ! Come, stand beside my knee- There's shouting on the mountain side, There's war within the blast Old faces look upon me, Old forms go trooping past. I hear the pibroch wailing Amidst the din of fight, 'Twas I that led the Highland host I've told thee how the Southrons fell And how we smote the Campbell clan I've told thee how we swept Dundee, But never have I told thee yet A traitor sold him to his foes; Face him, as thou wouldst face the man They brought him to the Watergate, They drew his hands behind his back, Then, as a hound is slipped from leash, It would have made a brave man's heart To watch the keen malignant eyes There stood the Whig west-country lads In balcony and bow, There sat their gaunt and withered dames, And their daughters all a-row; And every open window Was full as full might be With black-robed Covenanting carles, That goodly sport to see! But when he came, though pale and wan, And some that came to scoff at him, |