Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly, Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flit

ting by;

With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and

nearer drew,

Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue;

Thinking only of her crested head; poor foolish thing! At last

Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast.

He dragged her up his winding stair unto his dismal den,

Within his little parlor, and she ne'er came out again!

And now, dear little children, who may this story read,

To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed;

Unto every evil counsellor close heart, and ear, and eye,

And take a lesson from this tale of the spider and the fly!

CORNFIELDS.

When ou the breath of autumn breeze
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating like an idle thought
The fair white thistle-down,

Oh then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest hill!

What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,
And see all round on sunlit slopes
The piled-up stacks of corn;
And send the fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore!

I feel the day-I see the field,
The quivering of the leaves,
And good old Jacob and his house
Binding the yellow sheaves;
And at this very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.

I see the fields of Bethlehem,
And reapers many a one,
Bending unto their sickles' stroke,—
And Boaz looking on;
And Ruth, the Moabitess fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.

Again I see a little child,

His mother's sole delight,God's living gift of love unto

The kind good Shunamite,To mortal pangs I see him yield, And the lad bear him from the field.

The sun-bathed quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,

That eighteen hundred years ago
Were full of corn, I see,-
And the dear Saviour take his way
'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath-day.

O golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!
The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves,
To me are like a dream:
The sunshine and the very air
Seem of old time, and take me there.

Francis Mahony (Father Prout).

Mahony (1804-1866) better known by his nom de plume of Father Prout, came of a respectable middle-class Cork family, and was educated at St. Acheul, the college of the Jesuits at Amiens. Here he was taught to write and converse fluently in Latin. He studied also at Rome, and took priest's orders. About 1834 he became one of the writers for Fraser's Magazine, to which he contributed the "Prout Papers," remarkable for their drollery and for the evidences of great facility in Latin and Greek composition. Amidst all his convivialities he preserved a reverence for religion, and manifested great goodness of heart. One of his biographers describes him as "a scholar, a wit, a madcap priest, a skilled theologian, a gossiping old man, a companion of wild roisterers, and a rollicking, hard-drinking Irishman." For the last eight years of his life he resided chiefly in Paris as a correspondent of London papers.

POETICAL EPISTLE FROM FATHER PROUT TO BOZ (CHARLES DICKENS).

A rhyme, a rhyme

From a distant clime-
From the Gulf of the Genoese:
O'er the rugged scalps

Of the Julian Alps,
Dear Boz, I send you these,
To light the wick

Your candlestick
Holds up, or should you list,
To usher in

The yarn you spin
Concerning Oliver Twist.

"A year rolled on; when next at Paris I,

Lone woman that I am,

Saw him pass by,

Girt with his peers, to kneel at Notre Dame, I knew by merry chime and signal gun, God granted him a son,

And oh! I wept for joy!

For why not weep when warrior-men did, Who gazed upon that sight so splendid,

And blessed the imperial boy?

Never did noonday sun shine out so bright!
Oh, what a sight!"-

Mother! for you that must have been
A glorious scene!

"But when all Europe's gathered strength Burst o'er the French frontier at length,

"Twill scarcely be believed

What wonders, single-handed, he achieved. Such general never lived!

One evening on my threshold stood

A guest 'twas he! Of warriors few
He had a toil-worn retinue.

He flung himself into this chair of wood,
Muttering, meantime, with fearful air,
'Quelle guerre! ob, quelle guerre !"
Mother, and did our emperor sit there,
Upon that very chair?

"He said, 'Give me some food.'

Brown loaf I gave, and homely wine, And made the kindling fire-blocks shine, To dry his cloak, with wet bedewed.

Soon by the bounie blaze he slept; Then, waking, chid me (for I wept): 'Courage he cried, 'I'll strike for all Under the sacred wall

Of France's noble capital

Those were his words: I've treasured up
With pride that same wine-cup,

And for its weight in gold
It never shall be sold!"

Mother! on that proud relic let us gaze-
Oh keep that cup always!

"But, through some fatal witchery,

He whom a Pope had crowned and blessed, Perished, my sons, by foulest treachery!

Cast on an isle far in the lonely West.

Long time sad rumors were afloat-
The fatal tidings we would spurn,
Still hoping from that isle remote
Once more our hero would return.

But when the dark announcement drew

Tears from the virtuous and the braveWhen the sad whisper proved too true, A flood of grief I to his memory gave. Peace to the glorious dead!"— Mother! may God his fullest blessing shed Upon your agéd head!

Samuel Greg.

Greg (1804-1876) was a native of Manchester, England. He was a classmate of the Rev. James Martineau at the school of Dr. Lant Carpenter in Bristol (1819). Failing of success as a cotton-mill manager, he withdrew from business, and led a life of retirement, which in his latter years was somewhat darkened by disease. His brother, William Rathbone Greg (born 1809), author of "The Creed of Christendom," etc., writes of him: "It may be truly said that during all the later portion of his life he was manifestly ripening for the skies." After his death, a selection from his papers was published (1877) under the title of "A Layman's Legacy in Prose and Verse."

PAIN.

Awful power! whose birthplace lies Deep 'mid deepest mysteries— Thine the cry of earliest breath; Born in pain, entombed with death. Surely, Pain, thy power shall die When man puts off mortality.

Awful mystery! can it be
Mercy's name is writ on thee?
That thou comest from above,
Angel of the God of love?

While thou scourgest, tell us why;

What message speak'st thou from the sky?

Secrets dread hast thon to show?
Knowledge, which God's sons must know?
Power to purge and purify?
Human strength and power defy?
Make man's stony nature feel?
Mould his ore to tempered steel?

Or is thine the power alone,

So to tune our dull earth tone

To that diviner, holier strain

E'en love and grief attempt in vain:

Such as opens hearts to see

What meant the cross of Calvary?

Tell me, now, my saddened soul!

Tell me where we lost the day,Failed to win the shining goal, Slacked the pace, or missed the way? We are beaten;-face the truth!

"Twas not thus we thought to die, When the prophet-dreams of youth Sang of joy and victory.

Yes, we own life's battle lost:
Bleeding, torn, we quit the field;
Bright success-ambition's boast-

Here to happier men we yield.
And if some strong hero's sword
Had struck down my weaker blade,
Not one coward, moaning word

Had the weeping wound betrayed.

But I see the battle won

By less daring hearts than mine: Feebler feet the race have run;

Humbler brows the laurel twine. See there! at the glittering goal, See that smiling winner stand! Measure him from head to sole'Tis no giant of the laud.

Can I to that winner bow,

And declare how well he ran?

Thomas Kibble Hervey.

Hervey (1804-1859) was a native of Manchester, England. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and afterward read law. From 1846 to 1854 he edited The Atheпит. He published "Australia, and other Poems," 1824; "The Poetical Sketch-book," 1829; "The English Helicon," 1841. His poems are distinguished by an airy delicacy of style and a rare metrical sweetness.

HOPE.

Again-again she comes!-methinks I hear

Her wild, sweet singing, and her rushing wings; My heart goes forth to meet her with a tear, And welcome sends from all its broken strings. It was not thus-not thus-we met of yore, When my plumed soul went half-way to the sky To greet her; and the joyous song she bore

Was scarce more tuneful than the glad reply: The wings are fettered by the weight of years, And grief has spoiled the music with her tears.

She comes-I know her by her starry eyes,
I know her by the rainbow in her hair!
Her vesture of the light and summer skies--
But gone the girdle which she used to wear
Of summer roses, and the sandal flowers

That hung enamored round her fairy feet, When, in her youth, she haunted earthly bowers, And culled from all the beautiful and sweet. No more she mocks me with her voice of mirth, Nor offers now the garlands of the earth.

Come back, come back-thou hast been absent long, Oh! welcome back the sybil of the soul,