days. It had been arranged on board that all hands should give him three cheers for a greeting; but I was in no mood to join the sallow-visaged party. I took my gun and walked over the ice about a mile away from the ship to a solitary spot, where a great big hummock almost hemmed me in. There was hardly a breath of wind, with the thermometer at only 19o, and it was easy therefore to keep warm by walking gently up and down. Very soon the deep crimson blush, lightening into a focus of incandescent white, showed me that the hour was close at hand. Mounting upon a crag, I saw the crew of our one ship formed in line upon the ice. Presently the sun came; never, till the grave-sod or the ice covers me, may I forego this blessing of blessings again. I looked at him thankfully with a great globus in my throat. Then came the shout from the shipthree shouts-cheering the sun."

A LESSON FROM A SPARROW.

A SPARROW lighted chirping on a spray
Close to my window, as I knelt in prayer,
Bowed by a heavy load of anxious care.
The morn was bitter, but the bird was gay,
And seemed by cheery look and chirp to say-
"What though the snow conceals my wonted fare,
Nor I have barn or storehouse anywhere,

Yet I trust Heaven ev'n on a Winter's day."

That little bird came like a winged text

Fluttering from out God's Word to soothe my breast:
What though my life with wintry cares be vext,
On a kind Father's watchful love I rest;

He meets this moment's need, I leave the next,
And always trusting shall be always blest!

RICHARD WILTON, M.A.

DAISIES.

"Daisies, ye flowers of lowly birth,
Embroiderers of the carpet earth,
That gem the velvet sod;
Open to Spring's refreshing air;
In sweetest smiling bloom declare
Your Maker, and my God."

AISIES may be numbered among the joys of childhood. Who does not look back with a lingering fondness to that unchronological time when Winter was identified by frost on the window-pane, Summer by its long days, Autumn by its apples, and Spring by its daisies? Who does not remember the fragile white chains woven as one sat on the grass, twisted into garlands for hats, into necklaces, bracelets, coronets, and other perishable jewellery? They gave delight such as real "gold-embossed gems, set in silver," seldom or never afford. They were a joy belonging exclusively to Spring-and the spring-time of life.

Again is coming the season of

"The daisied sod

Where Spring's white foot hath lately trod:"

all hearts are gladdened by the balmy air and the increasing sunshine. Even in the town squares, upon the shaven sod, the "white foot" leaves prints which gladden town children under the trim trees, and cannot be suppressed by all the gardener's destructiveness with scythe and roller. Obstinately still

"The daisy does onbreid her crownal small,"

and fresh buds of the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," appear each morning gemming the grass. I believe that to the sight of agricul

turists a redundance of daisies in a pasture is even more unwelcome than to a martinet gardener; but with these exceptions, this wild flower (never called a weed even by the most practical) is counted beautiful everywhere.

Poets have wearied themselves in singing its praises. Some forgotten poet (speaking poetry when he meant prose, in all probability) gave it the name which condenses a compliment into two syllables,-Day's eye. What saith king Chaucer about it?

"Now this peculiar frame of mind have I,
That among all the flowers of the mead,
I love the most that flower white and red,
Which men in our town the daisy name
Through the whole day I shaped me to abide
For nothing else, and I shall tell no lie,
But on the daisy for to feed mine eye:
That has good reason why men call it may
The daisy, otherwise the eye of day:

The empress and the flower of flowers all."

As a mere object of exquisitely elegant workmanship, the daisy were well worth Chaucer's pondering. Had human fingers produced but one such gem, the world would ring with the artist's fame. Each daisy is a mass of yellow tubular florets, surrounded by white strap-shaped florets: in the golden disk every tiny flower is perfect (as will be seen by a magnifying glass), comprising calyx, corolla, stamens, and style: in the silver setting every flower is a white corolla void of stamens. Round these again is the sheath of the green involucre, inclosing the conical receptacle on which are set the manifold flowers:

"And who, but He that arched the skies,
And pours the day-spring's living flood,
Wondrous alike in all He tries,

Could raise the daisy's purple bud?
Mould its green cup, its wiry stem,
Its fringed border nicely-spin,
And cut the gold-embossèd gem

That set in silver gleams within?
Then fling it, unrestrained and free,
O'er hill and dale and desert sod,
That man, where'er he walks, may see
In every step, the stamp of God."

DAISIES.

Truly He hath not left himself without witness, in the very commonest objects that meet our eyes on every side, and appeal incessantly to our sense of fitness and beauty. For it is true that—

And a higher lesson may be learned a most practical teacher may be made of this flower of the field, if the doubting or despondent will allow it:

"To comfort him, to whisper hope,

Whene'er his faith is dim

That Who so careth for the flowers,

Will much more care for him!"

This modest flower has been chosen by royalty for an emblem, and deemed fit ornament for queens and kings. Louis the Ninth of France, having a beloved consort named Marguerite (which is also the French name for daisy), took the flower as his device, and wore a ring composed of the fleur-de-lis and daisy woven in gems. On the largest sapphire was engraved, “This "This ring comprises all we love,"-viz. his queen and country. Our own Margaret of Anjou had the same badge, though it ill suited her proud and chivalrous nature. At her first appearance in England all the nobility and knighthood wore this her emblem-flower in their caps and bonnets of estate, when they thronged to meet her in her royal progress from Southampton to London. Said the old poet Drayton on that

occasion :

"Of either sex, who doth not now delight
To wear the daisy for Queen Marguerite?"

The beautiful and gentle queen of Navarre, who so befriended the Reformers of France, was also emblematized by the daisy.

But, though thus promoted to courtly dignity, the daisy is not only the commonest of wild flowers, it also belongs to the largest and most widely diffused family,-not to any of their aristocratic section, but to the very democracy of the vegetable world. The dandelion, that blooms under every hedge; the groundsel, that fructifies beside every by-path; the rag-wort, ugliest of weeds; the corn-marigold in every wheat-field; are its brothers and sisters. One-tenth of the flowering plants of the earth are its relations. But nothing could vulgarize the daisy. Even the hard-hearted botanist who invented its Latin name, Bellis perennis, threw into that term his sense of its beauty; and any one that wishes to arrive at a due appreciation of its value had better take a few roots to Australia or to India. He will see brimming eyes over the blossom from home; he will hear such words as "Thrice welcome, little English flower!" It is not there "the unassuming commonplace of nature," as Wordsworth writes. It will act upon rough men as on the refined sensibilities of the Bard of Hope, who says of such:

"Ye wildlings of nature I dote upon you,

For ye waft me to Summers of old,

When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight,
And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight,

Like treasures of silver and gold."

Once there was a daisy with a biographer. Who does not know how

"Cauld blew the bitter biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth :

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm;

Scarce reared above the parent earth

Thy tender form"?

And then, for narration of its untimely demise, the poet tells us that—

"Thou, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou liftst thy unassuming head,

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies."