Offered in those happy days
When he walked in sinless ways.
"Jesus loves me!" Can it be
His, this _benedicite_?
Is there One who knows and cares?
One who all his sorrow shares?
"Jesus loves me!" While the song
Guileless lips with joy prolong,
Lo! a soul has ceased its strife,
Reconciled to God and life.
_Mary B. Sleight._
* * * * *
SONG OF BIRDS.
Did you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Did you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household word are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught;
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!
Think, every morning, when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the, grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old melodious madrigals of love!
And, when you think of this, remember, too,
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents, from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore!
_Longfellow.
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