'Tis with a nameless feeling of regret

We gaze upon them as they melt away, And fondly would we bid them linger yet;

But Hope is round us, with her angel lay, Hailing afar some happier moonlight hour;

Dear are her whispers still, though lost their early power.

In youth, the cheek was crimsoned with her glow;
Her smile was loveliest then; her matin song
Was heaven's own music, and the note of wo
Was all unheard her sunny bowers among.
Life's little world of bliss was newly born;

We knew not, cared not, it was born to die.
Flushed with the cool breeze and the dews of morn,

With dancing heart we gazed on the pure sky,
And mocked the passing clouds that dimmed its blue,
Like our own sorrows then-as fleeting and as few.

And manhood felt her sway, too; on the eye,
Half realized, hér early dreams burst bright;
Her promised bower of happiness seemed nigh,-
Its days of joy, its vigils of delight;

And though, at times, might lower the thunder-storm,
And the red lightnings threaten, still the air

Was balmy with her breath, and her loved form,

The rainbow of the heart, was hovering there.

'Tis in life's noontide she is nearest seen,

Her wreath the summer flower, her robe of summer green

But though less dazzling in her twilight dress,

There's more of heaven's pure beam about her now; That angel-smile of tranquil loveliness,

Which the heart worships, glowing on her brow-
That smile shall brighten the dim evening star,
That points our destined tomb, nor e'er depart

Till the faint light of life is fled afar,

And hushed the last deep beating of the heart,
The meteor-bearer of our parting breath,
A moon-beam in the midnight cloud of death.

LESSON CXV.

Perpetual Adoration.-MOORE.

THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine;
My temple, Lord, that arch of thine;
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.

My choir shall be the moonlight waves,
When murmuring homeward to their caves;
Or, when the stillness of the sea,
Even more than music, breathes of thee.

I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown,
All light and silence, like thy throne;
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.

Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look,
Shall be my pure and shining book,
Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.

I'll read thy anger in the rack,

That clouds awhile the day-beam's track; Thy mercy, in the azure hue

Of sunny brightness, breaking through.

There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom, to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy Deity!

There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy love;
And meekly wait that moment, when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again.

LESSON CXVI.

Music of Nature.—PIERPONT.

In what rich harmony, what polished lays,
Should man address thy throne, when Nature pays
Her wild, her tuneful tribute to the sky!

Yes, Lord, she sings thee, but she knows not why.
The fountain's gush, the long-resounding shore,
The zephyr's whisper, and the tempest's roar,
The rustling leaf, in autumn's fading woods,
The wintry storm, the rush of vernal floods,
The summer, bower, by cooling breezes fanned,
The torrent's fall, by dancing rainbows spanned,
The streamlet, gurgling through its rocky glen,
The long grass, sighing o'er the graves of men,
The bird that crests yon dew-bespangled tree,
Shakes his bright plumes, and trills his descant free,
The scorching bolt, that, from thine armory hurled,
Burns its red path, and cleaves a shrinking world;
All these are music to Religion's ear :-
Music, thy hand awakes, for man to hear.

LESSON CXVII.

Comparison of Watches.-Miss Edgeworth.

WHEN Griselda thought that her husband had long enough enjoyed his new existence, and that there was danger of his forgetting the taste of sorrow, she changed her tone.—One day, when he had not returned home exactly at the appointed minute, she received him with a frown; such as would have made even Mars himself recoil, if Mars could have beheld such a frown upon the brow of his Venus.

"Dinner has been kept waiting for you this hour, my dear." "I am very sorry for it; but why did you wait, my dear I am really very sorry I am so late, but" (looking at his watch) "it is only half past six by me."

"It is seven by me."

They presented their watches to each other; he in an apologetical, she in a reproachful, attitude.

"I rather think you are too fast, my dear," said the gentleman.

"I am very sure you are too slow, my dear," said the lady. 'My watch never loses a minute in the four-and-twenty hours," said he.

'Nor mine a second," said she.

"I have reason to believe I am right, my love," said the husband, mildly.

"Reason!" exclaimed the wife, astonished.

"What rea

son can you possibly have to believe you are right, when I tell you I am morally certain you are wrong, my love."

66

My only reason for doubting it is, that I set my watch by the sun to-day."

"The sun must be wrong then," cried the lady, hastily."You need not laugh; for I know what I am saying; the variation, the declination, must be allowed for, in computing it with the clock. Now you know perfectly well what I mean, though you will not explain it for me, because you are conscious I am in the right."

"Well, my dear, if you are conscious of it, that is sufficient. We will not dispute any more about such a trifle. Are they bringing up dinner?"

"If they know that you are come in; but I am sure I cannot tell whether they do or not.-Pray, my dear Mrs. Nettleby," cried the lady, turning to a female friend, and still holding her watch in hand, "what o'clock is it by you? There is nobody in the world hates disputing about trifles so much as I do; but I own I do love to convince people that I am in the right."

Mrs. Nettleby's watch had stopped. How provoking! Vexed at having no immediate means of convincing people that she was in the right, our heroine consoled herself by proceeding to criminate her husband, not in this particular instance, where he pleaded guilty, but upon the general charge of being always late for dinner, which he strenuously denied.

There is something in the species of reproach, which

advances thus triumphantly from particulars to generals, peculiarly offensive to every reasonable and susceptible mind; and there is something in the general charge of being always late for dinner, which the punctuality of man's nature cannot easily endure, especially if he be hungry. We should humbly advise our female friends to forbear exposing a husband's patience to this trial, or, at least, to temper it with much fondness, else mischief will infallibly ensue.

LESSON CXVIII.

Female Economy.-HANNAH MORE.

LADIES, whose natural vanity has been aggravated by a false education, may look down on economy as a vulgar attainment, unworthy of the attention of a highly cultivated intellect; but this is the false estimate of a shallow mind. Economy, such as a woman of fortune is called on to practise, is not merely the petty detail of small daily expenses, the shabby curtailments and stinted parsimony of a little mind, operating on little concerns; but it is the exercise of a sound judgment, exerted in the comprehensive outline of order, of arrangement, of distribution, of regulations, by which, alone, well governed societies, great and small, subsist She, who has the best regulated mind, will, other things being equal, have the best regulated family.

As, in the superintendence of the universe, wisdom is seen in its effects; and as, in the visible works of Providence, that, which goes on with such beautiful regularity, is the result, not of chance, but of design; so that management, which seems the most easy, is commonly the consequence of the best concerted plan; and a well concerted plan is seldom the offspring of an ordinary mind. A sound economy is a sound understanding brought into action; it is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion reduced to practice; it is foreseeing consequences, and guarding against them; it is expecting contingencies, and being prepared for them.

The difference is, that, to a narrow-minded, vulgar econo