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"Playing?" But what hast thou done beside,
To tell thy mother at eventide?

What promise of morn is left unbroken,—
What kind word to thy playmate spoken,—
Whom hast thou pitied, and whom forgiven,-
How with thy faults has duty striven?
What hast thou learned by field and hill,
By greenwood path, and singing rill?
There will come an eve to a longer day,

That will find thee tired-but not with play!

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My mother's voice! how often creep its accents on my lonely

hours!

Like healing sent on wings of sleep, or dew to the unconscious

flowers.

I can forget her melting prayer while leaping pulses madly fly, But in the still, unbroken air, her gentle tones come stealing by.

And years, and sin, and folly flee,

And leave me at my mother's knee.

The evening hours, the birds, the flowers, the starlight, moonlight,— all that's meet

For heaven, in this lost world of ours,—remind me of her teachings

sweet.

My heart is harder, and perhaps my thoughtlessness hath drunk up

tears;

And there's a mildew in the lapse of a few swift and checkered

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His lines on Dawn are very choice-dewy and fragrant :

Throw up the window.
In its most subtle luxury. The air
Is like a breathing from a rarer world;

'Tis a morn for life

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I know it has been trifling with the rose,
And stooping to the violet. There is joy
For all God's creatures in it. The wet leaves
Are stirring at its touch, and birds are singing
As if to breathe were music, and the grass

Sends up its modest odour with the dew,
Like the small tribute of humility.

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S. J. CLARKE ("Grace Greenwood") is the writer of these glowing stanzas on Love's Sweet Memories :

Canst thou forget, beloved, our first awaking

From out the shadowy calms of doubts and dreams,
To know Love's perfect sunlight round us breaking,
Bathing our beings in its gorgeous gleams—
Canst thou forget?

A sky of rose and gold was o'er us glowing,

Around us was the morning breath of May;

Then met our soul-tides, thence together flowing,

Then kissed our thought-waves, mingling on their way:

Canst thou forget?

*

Canst thou forget the childlike heart-outpouring

Of her whose fond faith knew no faltering fears?

The lashes drooped to veil her eyes adoring,

Her speaking silence, and her blissful tears—

Canst thou forget?

Canst thou forget, though all Love's spells be broken,
The wild farewell, which rent our souls apart?

And that last gift, affection's holiest token,

The severed tress, which lay upon thy heart

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Here is CROLY's fine tribute to Domestic Love:

O, love of loves!-to thy white hand is given
Of earthly happiness the golden key!
Thine are the joyous hours of winter's even,

When the babes cling around their father's knee;
And thine the voice, that on the midnight sea
Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home,

Peopling the gloom with all he longs to see.
Spirit! I've built a shrine; and thou hast come,
And on its altar closed-forever closed thy plume!

We close our Fifth Poetic Evening with with some of HORACE SMITH'S pictorial stanzas, entitled A Hymn to the Flowers:—

Day-stars! that ope your eyes with morn, to twinkle

From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation,

And dew-drops on her holy altars sprinkle,

As a libation!

Ye matin-worshippers! who, bending lowly
Before the uprisen sun, God's lidless eye,
chalices a sweet and holy

Throw from your

Incense on high !

Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty
The floor of Nature's temple tessellate,
What numerous emblems of instructive duty

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Your voiceless lips, O Flowers! are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit, and each leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers

From loneliest nook!

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"Weep without woe, and blush without a crime," O, may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender,

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Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary

For such a world of thought could furnish scope? Each fading calyx a memento mori,

Yet fount of hope!

Posthumous glories! angel-like collection!
Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth,
Ye are to me a type of resurrection

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