THERE is no flock, however watch'd and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair !

The air is full of farewells to the dying,

And mournings for the dead ;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapours

Amid these earthly damps.
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers,

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no death ! What seems so is transition.

This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead, the child of our affection,

But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protection,

And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,

By guardian angels led,
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,

She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing

In those bright realms of air;
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

1

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives,
Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her ;

For when with raptures wild
In our embraces we again enfold her,

She will not be a child ;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,

Clothed with celestial grace ;
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion

Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous wild emotion,

And anguish long suppress'd,
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,

That cannot be at rest, —

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay ;
By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

Longfellore.

OH, leeze me on my spinning wheel,

, And leeze me on my rock and reel; Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien, And haps me fiel and warm at e'en.

I'll set me down and sing and spin,
While laigh descends the simmer sun,
Blest wi' content, and milk and meal-
Oh, leeze me on my spinning-wheel !

On ilka hand the burnies trot,
And meet below my theekit cot;
The scented birk and hawthorn white
Across the pool their arms unite,
Alike to screen the birdies' nest,
And little fishes' caller rest :
The sun blinks kindly in the biel,
Where blithe I turn my spinning-wheel.

On lofty aiks the cushats wail,
And echo cons the doolsu' tale ;
The lintwhites in the hazel braes,
Delighted, rival ither's lays :
The craik amang the clover hay,
The paitrick whirrin' o'er the ley,
The swallow jinkin' round my shiel,
Amuse me at my spinning wheel.

Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy,
Aboon distress, below envy,
Oh, wha wad leave this humble state,
For a' the pride of a' the great ?
Amid their flaring, idle toys,
Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys,
Can they the peace and pleasure feel
Of Bessy at her spinning-wheel?

Burns.