A LITTLE BOY LOST.

N

OUGHT loves another as itself,

Nor venerates another so,

Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know:

And, father, how can I love you of my brothers more?

Or any

I love you like the little bird

That picks up crumbs around the door.

The Priest sat by and heard the child, In trembling zeal he seized his hair :

He led him by his little coat,

And all admired the priestly care.

And standing on the altar high :

"Lo! what a fiend is here!" said he :

"One who sets reason up for judge

Of our most holy mystery."

The weeping child could not be heard,

The weeping parents wept in vain; They stripp'd him to his little shirt And bound him in an iron chain ;

And burn'd him in a holy place

Where many had been burn'd before: The weeping parents wept in vain.

Are such things done on Albion's shore !

HOLY THURSDAY.

S this a holy thing to see

IS

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are fill'd with thorns : It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,

Babe can never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appal.

I

I

THE ANGEL.

DREAMT a dream! what can it mean?

And that I was a maiden queen,

Guarded by an angel mild:

Witless woe was ne'er beguiled.

And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away,
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart's delight.

So he took his wings and fled;
Then the morn blush'd rosy red;

I dried my tears and arm'd my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.

Soon my angel came again :
I was arm'd, he came in vain ;
For the time of youth was fled,
hairs were on my head.

And grey