"My ain dear Mary, gang wi' me
Far away," said my Sandy,

Yea, yea, my love, an' we'll e'er be true,
Tho' our lot be sma' an' our flocks be few-
What should a body do?

-Marie de Laborde.

SINGING ITSELF.

I ASKED a wee maid with winsome way
How she sang her songs through the livelong day;
Are they woodland echoes that come at call?
Are they fairy footsteps that 'round you fall?
Did you borrow or steal each happy note

From some feathered songster's bursting throat? Do you make them out of the flowerets gay? Or weave in the sunbeam's golden ray? "Oh, I cannot tell," said the merry elf, "I cannot help it, it sings itself."

There's a song in my heart whose gay notes ring
Louder than woodland songsters sing,
Grander than those which have found a tongue,
Sweeter than any my lips have sung,
Brighter than sunbeams or flowerets gay,
This song that sings through the livelong day.
It never ceases, through storms or ill,
Of one sweet joy will it carol still.

I will borrow your phrase, my merry elf,
For this song in my heart that sings itself.

-Unidentified.

THE WORLD'S WAY.

He passed away from us in gray March weather, When all the land was strewn with signs of dearth, While winter and young spring strove hard together Te in dominion o'er the sterile earth.

Soft April came, bedewed his grave with showers,
And left him-we, his friends, were fain to weep
And leave him to the keeping of the hours

That pass, alas, and may not sleep nor weep.

Came jocund May, and filled the birds with gladness,
June followed after, full of shy delight;

And we his friends, we quite forgot our sadness,
And gathered dewy rosebuds while we might.
-Thomas Parker Sanborn.

GOOD-BY ER HOWDY-DO.

SAY good-by er howdy-do-
What's the odds betwixt the two!
Comin'-goin'-every day-
Best friends first to go away-
Grasp of hands you'd ruther hold
Than their weight in solid gold,
Slips their grip while greeting you-
Say good-by er howdy do.

Howdy-do and then good-by

Mixes just like laugh and cry;

Deaths and births, and worst and best,

Tangled their contrariest;

Every jinglin' weddin' bell

Skerrin' up some funeral knell

Here's my song and there's your sigh;

Howdy-do and then good-by.

Say good-by er howdy-do-
Jest the same to me and you;
"Tain't worth while to make no fuss,
'Cause the job's put up on us;
Some one's runnin' this concern
That's got nothin' else to learn--
If he's willin' we'll pull through,
Say good-by er howdy-do!

-James Whitcomb Riley.

LITTLE HONORA MULEALLY.

POOR little Honora Mullally,
At the close of Thanksgiving day,
Was standing in front of her alley,
A watching some children at play.
Her gown was a wonderful garment,
All patches from shoulder to hem,

And her hat and her shoes-well, I beg you'll excuse
Any further remarks about them.

But poor little Honora Mullally

Had a face just as bright as could be,

And no flower in meadow or valley

Was ever as pretty as she.

And so thought an old man, who, passing,
Stopped a moment to smilingly say,

"Why bless your dear heart, I am sure you have had A very good dinner to-day.'

"Yis, indade," said Honora Mullally,
"I did; for my frind Mrs Down
Had a hape of sweet taters that Sally,
Her sister, baked lovely and brown,

Wid-oh, ma'ma, if you could but have seen it !—
The fattest and foinest of hins,

And they giv' me the gizzard and neck of that hin,
And all of the sweet taters skins. ""

-Margaret Fytinge.

KISSES.

ONCE he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as the sunlight drinketh dew.

--Tennyson.

Kiss, sunbeams, kiss

The dear old face of earth,

And bring the sap to the bursting bud,
And bring the flower to birth!
Kiss, kiss, and kiss!

-From the Greek.

In delight,

Both of her beauty and submissive charms,
Smiled with superior love, as Jupiter

On Juno smiles when he impregns the clouds
That shed May flowers, and pressed her matron lip
With kisses pure.

Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,

A bud that dare not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up.
Over your head to sleep I bow.

How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning.

-Milton.

-Browning.

-Tom Moore.

There is gold, and here

My bluest veins to kiss; a hand that kings
Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.

-Shakespeare.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;

-Ben Jonson.

Say that health and wealth have missed me; Say I'm growing old, but add—

Jenny kissed me.

-Leigh Hunt.

LIFE.

O MEN that fret as frets the main !
You irk me with your eager gaze
Down in the earth for fat increase-
Eternal talks of gold and gain,
Your shallow wit, your shallow ways
And breaks my soul across the shoal,
As breakers break on shallow seas.

TRANSFORMED.

-Joaquin Miller.

He was a swineherd, so the story runs,
Uncouth and sad, but with a throbbing heart,
Who, when he saw her pass along the way,
Mirola, the king's child, devout and fair,
Could not but fall upon her path and cry,
Fair lady! may I look upon your face?

And so his rudeness vanisht, and the man,
Smitten to life, as by the hand of Jove,
Bourgeoned in thought; lost all his former self.
Thus, in a trice, before her beauty's spell,
Became a Poet!-'Tis a legend old,

Writ in the chronicle of Mohrakad.

LIFE.

-Gilbert P. Knapp.

OUR life is nothing but a winter's day,
Some only break their fast and so away;
Others stay dinner, and depart full-fed;
The deepest age but sups and goes to bed.
He's most in debt that lingers out the day;
Who dies betimes has less and less to pay.

THE SURE ESTATE.

WHAT signify the care and pain
That I must yet endure-
The loss of love, the love in vain,
The crime of being poor?

-Quarles.