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SABBATH EVENING TWILIGHT.

Whether safe moored in love's retreat,

Or severed wide by mount and seaThis hour, in spirit, we would meet,

And urge to Heaven our mutual plea.

O, tell me if this hallowed hour

Still finds thee constant at our shrine, Still witnesses thy fervent prayer

Ascending warm and true with mine! Faithful through every change of wo,

My heart still flies to meet thee there : "Twould sooth this very heart to know

That thine responded every prayer.

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SUNRISE ON THE HILLS.

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

I STOOD upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,

And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.

The clouds were far beneath me :-bathed in light
They gathered midway round the wooded height,
And in their fading glory shone

Like hosts in battle overthrown,

As many a pinnacle with shifting glance,

Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered lance,
And rocking on the cliff was left

The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.
The veil of cloud was lifted—and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade,

Where upward in the mellow blush of day
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

SUNRISE ON THE HILLS.

I heard the distant waters dash

I saw the current whirl and flash-
And richly by the blue lake's silver beach

The woods were bending with a silent reach.
Then o'er the vale with gentle swell

The musick of the village-bell

Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills,

And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,
Was ringing to the merry shout

That faint and far the glen sent out,

Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke
Through thick-leaved branches from the dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows that thou wouldst forget-
If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills!-no tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears,

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THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN.

BY H. F. GOULD.

I AM a Pebble! and yield to none !”
Were the swelling words of a tiny stone,
"Nor time nor seasons can alter me;
I am abiding, while ages flee.

The pelting hail and the drizzling rain
Have tried to soften me, long, in vain;
And the tender dew has sought to melt,
Or touch my heart; but it was not felt.
There's none that can tell about my birth,
For I'm as old as the big,round earth.
The children of men arise, and pass
Out of the world, like the blades of grass;

And many a foot on me has trod,

That's gone from sight, and under the sod!
I am a Pebble! but who art thou,

Rattling along from the restless bough?”

The Acorn was shocked at this rude salute, And lay for a moment abashed and mute;

THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN.

She never before had been so near
This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere;
And she felt for a time at a loss to know
How to answer a thing so coarse and low.
But to give reproof of a nobler sort
Than the angry look, or the keen retort,
At length she said, in a gentle tone:-
"Since it has happened that I am thrown
From the lighter element, where I grew,
Down to another, so hard and new,
And beside a personage so august,
Abased, I will cover my head with dust,
And quickly retire from the sight of one
Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun,
Nor the gentle dew, nor the grinding heel,
Has ever subdued or made to feel!"

And soon, in the earth, she sunk away

From the comfortless spot where the Pebble lay.

But it was not long ere the soil was broke

By the peering head of an infant oak!

And, as it arose and its branches spread,

The Pebble looked up, and wondering said: "A modest Acorn! never to tell

What was enclosed in its simple shell;

That the pride of the forest was folded up
In the narrow space of its little cup!

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