THE MILLER OF THE DEE.

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But, hush!-he is dreaming! A veil on the main, At the distant horizon, is parted in twain;

And now, on his dreaming eye, rapturous sight! Fresh bursts the New World from the darkness of night!

Oh, vision of glory! how dazzling it seems!

How glistens the verdure! how sparkle the streams! How blue the far mountains! how glad the green isles!

And the earth and the ocean, how dimpled with smiles!

"Joy! joy!" cries Columbus, "this region is mine!" Ah! not e'en its name, wondrous dreamer, is thine!

At length o'er Columbus slow consciousness breaks; "Land! land!" cry the sailors; "land! land!" He

awakes;

He runs;-yes, behold it!-it blesseth his sight. The land! Oh, dear spectacle! transport! delight! Oh, generous sobs, which he cannot restrain!

What will Ferdinand say ?—and the Future? and Spain ?

He will lay this fair land at the foot of the throne, His king will repay all the ills he has known.

In exchange for a world, what are honours and gains ? Or a crown? But how is he rewarded?-with chains!

THE MILLER OF THE DEE.

C. MACKAY.

THERE dwelt a miller hale and bold,
Beside the river Dee;

He work'd and sang from morn to night,
No lark more blithe than he;

And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be:

"I envy nobody: no, not I,

And nobody envies me !"

"Thou'rt wrong, my friend!" said old King Hal,
"Thou'rt wrong as wrong can be;
For could my heart be light as thine,
I'd gladly change with thee.

And tell me now what makes thee sing
With voice so loud and free,

While I am sad, though I'm the king,
Beside the river Dee ?"

The miller smiled and doff'd his cap:
"I earn my bread," quoth he;
"I love my wife, I love my friend,
I love my children three;

I owe no penny I cannot pay:

I thank the river Dee,

That turns the mill that grinds the corn,
To feed my babes and me.'

"Good friend," said Hal, and sigh'd the while,

"Farewell! and happy be:

But say no more, if thou'dst be true,

That no one envies thee.

Thy mealy cap is worth my crown,
Thy mill my kingdom's fee!

Such men as thou are England's boast,
Oh, miller of the Dee!"

AGAINST LYING.

GOD PROVIDETH FOR THE MORROW.

REGINALD HEBER.

Lo, the lilies of the field,

How their leaves instruction yield!
Hark to Nature's lesson, given

By the blessed birds of heaven;
Every bush and tufted tree
Warbles sweet philosophy:
"Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow!

"Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose ?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we poor citizens of air?

Barns, nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily,

Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow,
God provideth for the morrow!

"One there lives, whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;

One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers, lest they fall.
Pass we blithely then, the time
Fearless of the snare and lime,

Free from doubt and faithless sorrow!
God provideth for the morrow!"

AGAINST LYING.

DR. WATTS.

OH! 'tis a lovely thing for youth
To walk betimes in Wisdom's way:
To fear a lie, to speak the truth,

That we may trust to all they say !

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But liars we can never trust,

Though they should speak the thing that's true;

And he that does one fault at first,

And lies to hide it, makes it two.

Have we not known, nor heard, nor read,
How God abhors deceit and wrong?
How Ananias was struck dead,

Caught with a lie upon his tongue?

So did his wife Sapphira die,
When she came in, and grew so bold
As to confirm the wicked lie

That just before her husband told.

The Lord delights in them that speak
The words of truth; but every

Must have his portion in the lake

liar

That burns with brimstone and with fire.

Then let me always watch my lips,
Lest I be struck to death and hell,
Since God a book of reck'ning keeps
For every lie that children tell.

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

WE sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,

Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives henceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,

And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very

tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make

A mournful rustling in the dark,

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire

Built of the wreck of stranded ships,

The flames would leap and then expire.

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