146
YON STREAM AND MILL. — THE STREAMLET.
received a tremendous injunction not to speak to
his children or notice them in any way.’
Nonsense, Fred!” said his sister, turning red.
“I know it was nonsense, but you did it. You called him all sorts of names—a ‘ridiculous old goose,' a ‘grown-up baby,’ and I don’t know what not. Now here’s the same old fellow up te the same old trick; and oh! gracious, there never was suoh a beautiful, charming, delightful scene! Really I ought to write a poem on it— guess I will, and entitle it ‘Then and Now;or, J ‘The Fool Grows Wiser as he GrowB Richer;’ which would be the best, sis?”
“Hold your tongue!” snapped the lady.
Fred’s sarcasm was not misplaced.
What is called the poor man’s simplicity, is entitled the rich man’s sublimity. It was the same noble, tender, loving, great heart standing by the little ones in his coarse coat, jeered at and insulted with impunity by the rich, that now bent his fine broadcloth to the dust in order to be on a level with the little ones; but not to the neighbors! Poor! all his nobleness was but dross in their eyes. Rich! and his weaknesses would be heavenly lustres, since their offset was the almighty dollar.
YON STREAM AND MILL.
BY MRS. IANNY SPAKQEMBllO.
YON STREAM MRS. PARRY
Tm! varied scenes of later years
Have vanished from my dreaming mind,
Wrapped in a vail of falling tears,
I leave them all far, far behind:
Forgetting all the present hours,
My thoughts have wandered to the past,
Those days of joy, enwreathed with flow-rs,
That fled away, aye, all too fast!
AND
MILL.
SPANGENBEBG.
The present, with its hopes and fears,
Into the future seems beguiled,
Forgetting all the lapse of years,
I know myself again a child.
And gazing on the crystal wave,
I lose all cares and sorrows too;
No sweeter draught the world e'er gave
To cool my lips nor bless my view.
The mill-wheel in its ceaseless round,
Throwing the foam like feathery snow,
Still echoes back the self-same sound
80 dear to me long, long ago.
I mind me well those halcyon days
Of Summer, when I was a child,
When roving through the forest ways,
I, like the birds, was free and wild.
Methinks I hear the murmur sweet
Of that bright stream where oft I strayed,
And list again the cinching beat
0f the old mill wherein I played.
Yon stream and milll You stream and milll
Across the vale of Time ye come,
And with your murmuring voices still
Recall the wandering footsteps home;
Breathing a lay all bright and fair
Of other days and scenes as dear,
Lighting the heart of half its care,
Yet filling the eye with mein’ry’s tear!
What matters it to me that old
And worn the time-stained mill doth seem—
The spider’s webs like threads of gold,
To my still partial fancy gleam?
THE
BY
Llr'ru streamlet, clear and bright,
Sparkling, bubbling, singing fountain,
Dancing in the quivering light,
Flashing downward from the mountain.
Like a vein of living light
Ever onward thou art sweeping.
Scattering gems o'er flowers bright,
As from rock to rock thou’rt leaping.
Broader now the little stream,
And less musical its flowing,
Winding through the meadows green,
Life and loveliness bestowing.
Little vessels gayly glide
O’er the tiny, glancing billows,
STREAMLET.
SARAH
8.
SOOWELL.
Stately vessels o’er it glide,
With a light and graceful motion.
Thus it is with human life,
Childhood, with its sunny hours,
Is the brook with gladness rife,
Singing through the mountain bower-s.
Youth, the softly murmuring stream,
Still its onward journey urging,
Flashing in the sunlight‘s gleam,
In the mighty river merging.
Manhood is the swelling tide,
Sweeping t0 the boundless ocean,
Losing there its strength and pride
In the billows’ wild commotion.
Where, into the snnlit tide.
Sweep the drooping silver willows.
Now it swells, a mighty tide,
Rolling onward to the ocean;
And the vast mysterious “a”
Still to Heaven its anthem sending,
Is that dim eternity
To which man is ever tending.
