204

THE STARS.

THE STARS.

"STARS, that on your wondrous way Travel through the evening sky,

Is there nothing you can say

To a child so small as I?
Tell me - for I long to know
Who has made you sparkle so?"

"Child, as truly as we roll

Through the dark and distant sky,

You have an immortal soul,

Born to live when we shall die:

Suns and planets pass away,

Spirits never can decay.

"When, some thousand years at most,

All their little time have spent,

One by one our sparkling host

Shall forsake the firmament,
We shall from our glory fall;

You must live beyond us all.

"Yes, and God, who bade us roll,
God, who hung us in the sky,
Stoops to watch an infant's soul,
With a condescending eye,
And esteems it dearer far,
More in value than a star!

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

"O then, while your breath is given,

Pour it out in fervent prayer,

And beseech the God of Heaven
To receive your spirit there;

As a living star to blaze

Ever to your Saviour's praise."

205

HYMNS FOR INFANT MINDS.

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was queen of land and sea! No sound was heard of clashing wars,

Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars

Held undisturbed their ancient reign, -
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

"T was in the calm and silent night!
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot's flight,
From lordly revel rolling home.
Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell

His breast with thoughts of boundless sway:

206

A CHRISTMAS HYMN.

What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away,--
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago?

Within that province far away

Went plodding home a weary boor;
A streak of light before him lay,

Fallen through a half-shut stable door
Across his path. He paused, for naught
Told what was going on within:
How keen the stars, his only thought;
The air how calm, and cold, and thin, -
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

O strange indifference! - low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still, but knew not why:

The world was listening- unawares !
How calm a moment may precede

One that shall thrill the world forever!
To that still moment none would heed,
Man's doom was linked, no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight,

Centuries ago!

It is the calm and silent night!

A thousand bells ring out, and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite
The darkness, charmed and holy now!

FOREST SCENE IN THE DAYS OF WICKLIFF. 207

The night that erst no shame had worn,

To it a happy name is given;

For in that stable lay, new-born,

The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven,-
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

ALFRED DORNETT.

FOREST SCENE IN THE DAYS OF WICKLIFF.

A LITTLE child, she read a book,
Beside an open door ;

And as she read page after page,
She wondered more and more.

Her little finger, carefully,

Went pointing out the place;
Her golden locks hung drooping down,
And shadowed half her face.

The open book lay on her knee,
Her eyes on it were bent;
And as she read page after page,
Her color came and went.

He sat upon a mossy stone,
An open door beside ;

And round, for miles on every side,
Stretched out a forest wide.

208

FOREST SCENE IN THE DAYS OF WICKLIFF.

The summer sun shone on the trees,

The deer lay in the shade;
And overhead the singing-birds

Their pleasant clamor made.

There was no garden round the house,
And it was low and small;
The forest sward grew to the door,
The lichens on the wall.

There was no garden round about,
Yet flowers were growing free;
The cowslip and the daffodil
Upon the forest lea.

The butterfly went flitting by;

The bees were in the flowers;
But the little child sat steadfastly,
As she had sat for hours.

"Why sit ye here, my little maid ?"
An aged pilgrim spake;

The child looked upward from her book
Like one but just awake.

Back fell her locks of golden hair,

And solemn was her look;
And thus she answered, witlessly,

"O sir, I read this book!"