Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden show'rs,
Which, by the peep of day, doe strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.

Melt, melt my paines,

With thy soft straines ;
That having ease me given,
With full delight

I leave this light,
And take my flight

For Heaven.

HERRICK, Hesperides.

January 3.

THE LEISURE OF MAN'S FIRST DEATHLESS LIFE.

MAN'S life was spacious in the early world :
It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled,
Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled :
Beheld the slow star-spaces of the skies,

And grew from strength to strength through centuries:

Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,

And heard a thousand times the sweet birds' marriage hymns.

Time was but leisure to their lingering thought,
There was no need for haste to finish aught;
But sweet beginnings were repeated still,

Like infant-babblings that no task fulfil,

For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple will.

GEORGE ELIOT, Legend of Jubal.

January 4.

ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER.

THOU shouldst have longer lived, and to the grave
Have peacefully gone down in full old age;
Thy children would have tended thy gray hairs.
We might have sate, as we have often done
By our fireside, and talked whole nights away,
Old times, old friends, and old events recalling,
With many a circumstance of trivial note
To memory dear, and of importance grown.
How shall we tell them to a stranger's ear?
A wayward son ofttimes I was to thee;
And yet, in all our little bickerings,
Domestic jars, there was I know not what
Of tender feeling that were ill exchanged

For this world's chilling friendships, and their smiles
Familiar, whom the heart calls strangers still.
A heavy lot hath he, most wretched man,
Who lives the last of all his family!

He looks around him, and his eye discerns
The face of the stranger; and his heart is sick.
Man of the world, what canst thou do for him?
Wealth is a burthen which he could not bear ;
Mirth a strange crime, the which he dare not act,
And generous wines no cordial to his soul.
For wounds like his, Christ is the only cure.
Go, preach to him of a world to come,

Where friends shall meet and know each other's

face;

Say less than this, and say it to the winds!

CHARLES LAMB.

January 5.

FRIENDSHIP.

MAY I through life's uncertain tide
Be still from pain exempt;
May all my wants be still supplied;
My state too low t' admit of pride,
And yet above contempt.

But, should Thy Providence Divine
A greater bliss intend,

May all these blessings you design,
If e'er those blessings shall be mine,
Be centred in a friend.

MERRICK, 1720.

January 6.

SLEEP, Holy Babe!
Upon Thy mother's breast!

Great Lord of earth and sea and sky,
How sweet it is to see Thee lie
In such a place of rest.

Sleep, Holy Babe!

Thine Angels watch around:
All bending low, with folded wings,
Before th' Incarnate King of kings,
In reverent awe profound.

Sleep, Holy Babe!
While I with Mary gaze
In joy upon that face awhile,
Upon the loving infant smile,

Which there divinely plays.

Sleep, Holy Babe!

Ah! take Thy brief repose:
Too quickly will Thy slumbers break,
And Thou to lengthen'd pains awake,
That death alone shall close.

Then must these hands, Which now so fair I see; Those little dainty feet of Thine So soft, so delicately fine,

Be pierced and rent for me!

Then must that brow

Its thorny crown receive;

That cheek, more lovely than the rose,

Be drench'd with blood, and marr'd with blows, That I thereby may live.

E. CASWALL.

January 7.

You know her meek sister? Oh, soft is the fall
Of her fairy footsteps on hut and on hall!
To hide the old father's bleak doings below
In pity she cometh, the ministering snow.

With her mantle she covereth the shelterless trees,
As they groan to the howl of the Borean breeze;
And baffles the search of the subtle wind,
Guarding each crevice lest it should find
Its moaning way to the fireless fold

Of the trembling young, and the weeping old.
When thro' her white bosom the daisy appears,
She greets the fair stranger with motherly tears;
And they mingle so sweet with the golden ray
Of the struggling beam that chides her away.

But where's the last speck of her brightness seen?
'Mid the bursting spring and the saucy green?
In the coldest side of yon lone churchyard,
Neglected graves she loveth to ward;
But not where gorgeous marble pleads,
And frequent foot of mourner treads;
But down by the stranger's noteless lair,
Where sighs are few and footsteps rare,
She loveth, she loveth to linger there!
O'er hearts forgotten that sleep below,
There is none to weep but the friendly snow.

FAIN would I wish what my heart cannot will:
Between it and the fire a veil of ice

Deadens the fire, so that I deal in lies;
My words and accents are discordant still.
I love Thee with my tongue, then mourn my fill;
For love warms not my heart, nor can I rise,
Or ope the doors of Grace, who from the skies
Might flood my soul, and pride and passion kill.
Rend Thou the veil, dear Lord! Break Thou that
wall,

Which, with its stubbornness, retards the rays
Of that bright sun this earth hath dulled for me!
Send down Thy promised light to cheer and fall
On Thy fair spouse, that I with love may blaze,
And, free from doubt, my heart feel only Thee.

MICHAEL ANGELO (J. A. SymONDS).