Though at times he hears in his dreams

The Ranz des Vaches of old,

And the rush of mountain streams

From glaciers clear and cold;

And the mother at home says, "Hark! For his voice I listen and yearn;

It is growing late and dark,

And my boy does not return!"

For I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun,

Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn,

And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us

If the children were no more?

We should dread the desert behind us

Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,

Ere their sweet and tender juices

Have been hardened into wood,

That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow

Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.

Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In

your sunny atmosphere.

P

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses, And the gladness of your looks f

Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

SANDALPHON.

HAVE you read in the Talmud of old,

In the Legends the Rabbins have told Of the limitless realms of the air,Have you read it,-the marvellous story Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory, Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered

Alone in the desert at night?