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THE LITTLE GRAVE.

My swimming eyes oft wander to the casement,
And linger where the oak's green branches wave-
A hallowed spot, for nestled 'neath its shadow
There is a little grave.

And when the storms arise, and wild and fiercely
The hoarse winds moan above her place of rest,
I watch, and fain would shield my little darling
Close in my love-warm breast.

And yet, I know her bright and sinless spirit
Is in our heavenly Father's home of bliss,
And she will never bear the pain and sorrow
Of such a world as this.

The little eyes, that ever looked on beauty
With such delightful and admiring gaze,
How must they feast, enraptured with the splendour,
Where heavenly glories blaze!

The little ears, that ever tireless listened

And loved the simple strains of earth so well,
How will the myriad golden harps of heaven,
Hold in entrancing spell;

Those lips, that earthly word had never spoken,
With angel choirs their first sweet note to raise,
In the melodious dialect of heaven,

How sweet their song of praise!

Ah! if we meet again in those bright mansions,
She will remember those on earth so dear;
Her sweet face welcome at the shining portal
Those who so loved her here.

And thus I strive to soothe my bosom's yearning
For this, my lost, but blessed little one;

And with my hand upon my quiv'ring heart-strings,
To say "THY WILL BE DONE."

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MY OWN HOME REVISITED.

THE commonest objects become endeared to us by absence; things which we before scarcely deigned to notice are then found to possess strange charms, bringing to the memory many a forgotten incident, and to the heart many an old emotion. Never did these thoughts and feelings come upon me more strongly than when, a few months ago, I left London to visit my native home-to place my feet hearthstone by which I had sat when a boy. affected feeling, no imaginary delight, but a wild eagerness to look upon the old woods and green hills which had been

upon the very Mine was no

familiar to me from childhood, and to which my mind had so often sailed on the dreamy wings of pleasure, asleep or awake, just as fancy wandered.

The old house was still the same, and every thing it contained seemed to stand in the very position that they occupied twenty years ago; there was no change, saving that they appeared to look older, somehow more venerable; but the alteration was as much in myself as the objects I looked upon.

I gazed upon the old clock, and fancied that the ancient monitor had undergone a great change since my boyish days; it seemed to have lost that sharp clear clicking with which it greeted mine ears when a child, and when it told the hour, it spoke in a more solemn tone than that of former years. I looked upon the brass figures which ornamented the clockface. In former days they looked bright and gladsome, they seemed not to bend under the load they supported; but now they have a care-worn look about them, and what they seemed to bear once with a playful grace, now hangs upon upon them like a burthen; their brows, too, seemed heavy, as if they had passed away long years in painful thought. The gilt balls, which decorate the tall case, were tarnished; the golden worlds into which my fancy had so often conjured them were gone; the light that played around them in other days was dimmed; the sunshine rested upon them no longer. I heard the clock-chains slipping at intervals, as if they could not keep pace with time; they seemed weary with long watching; they could no longer keep a firm foot-hold down the steep hill which they had traversed so many years.

I looked on those ancient fingers, now black with age, and which were bright when they pointed out my hours of pleasure. They no longer told the time when my play-fellows would call upon me to wander into the green fields-but they warned me that it was nearly the hour for the delivery of letters, and I became anxious to hear from those whom I had left nearly two hundred miles behind me—another home and other cares came before me.

I then summoned memory before me, and he stood up in my own likeness-a boy who had seen but twelve summers. I looked upon him, and saw that he was then unworthy of the notice of Care; and that Sorrow disdained to buckle her load upon his back; but he had his own thoughts for playthings to amuse himself with, until he could learn the great realities of life. I saw why the tempest passed over him harmlessly when a boy, for, like a lowly plant, he had no bulk to oppose to its might, and had only, after long years, become a mark for the storm, with trunk and branches strong enough to wrestle against its power. The finger of Heaven," exclaimed I, "guideth all things aright."

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My eye fell upon the old mirror into which I had looked twenty years ago, on which I had gazed when a child, and marvelled how another fire and another room could stand within the compass of so small a frame. It gave me neither flattery nor welcome, but gravely threw me back, seated by the same hearth which I had so often scrawled over with the mis-shapen figures of men and monsters when a boy. We confronted each other with a familiar boldness, as if proud that we had stood the wear-and-tear of time so well.

We looked seriously, but not unkindly, upon each other. The image in the mirror seemed as if it would have accosted me, and had much to utter, but its lips became compressed, as if it scorned to murmur. It gave back another form for a moment—a lovely maiden stood arranging her ringlets before it—but that was only fancy, for I remembered she had long been dead. The very crack which I had made along the old looking-glass, when a boy, with my ball, seemed like a landmark dividing the past from the present. I could have moralized for hours on that old mirror.

On the wall hung the large slate on which I ventured to write my first couplet: what I then wrote was easily obliterated; my ragged jacket cuff was the willing critic that passed lightly over my transgressions, and shone all the brighter after the deed. I knew not that such men as authors lived; every book was taken up without a suspicion of its lacking truth, and strange as they might seem, I felt proud in the wisdom I gathered from their pages.

Then there was that old tea-board, with the stately lady in a garden on the centre, herself overtopping every tree. But that tray was only used on rare occasions, real "whitecake-days," when some cousin or aunt came to tea; and the mended china was handed carefully from the corner-cupboard, and the blue glass sugar-basin, which I hoped some day to see broken, that I might have the bits to spy through. The old white table was still in the same place; and its long drawer seemed at last to have found rest-tops, marbles, fishing-tackle, which it was opened a score of times in a day to rummage for, were all gone; there is no danger now of

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