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GILLYFLOWERS.

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LD-FASHIONED, yes, I know they are,
Long exiled from the gay parterre,
And banished from the bowers;
But not the fairest foreign bloom
Can match in beauty or perfume
Those bonny English flowers.

Their velvet petals, fold on fold,
In every shade of flaming gold,
And richest, deepest brown,
Lie close with little leaves between,
Of slender shape and tender green,
And soft as softest down.

On Sabbath mornings long ago,
When melody began to flow
From out the belfry tower,

I used to break from childish talk,
To pluck beside the garden walk
My mother's Sunday flower.

In spring she loved the snow-drop white,
In summer time carnations bright,

Or roses newly blown;

But this the bower she cherished most,
And from the goodly garden host

She chose it for her own.

Ah, mother dear! the brown flowers wave
In sunshine o'er thy quiet grave,

This morning far away;

And I sit lonely here the while,
Scarce knowing if to sigh or smile
Upon their sister spray.

I well could sigh, for grief is strong,
I well could smile, for love lives long,
And conquers even death;

But if I smile, or if I sigh,

God knoweth well the reason why,
And gives me broader faith.

Firm faith to feel all good is meant,
Sure hope to fill with deep content
My most despairing hours;

And oftentimes he deigns to shed
Sweet sunshine o'er the path I tread,
As on to-day, these flowers.

And chose he not a bearer meet,

To bring for me those blossoms sweet,
A loving little child?

And child and bonny blossoms come,
Like messages of love and home,

O'er waters waste and wild.

-All the Year Round.

Forgetfulness for the Dead. New York Sun.

We copied the other day from the St. Louis Republican a poem entitled, "Nirvana," setting forth in striking language the Buddhist idea of the destiny of man after death. We reproduced the verses ¦ precisely as our St. Louis contemporary gave them, but a correspondent in Paterson informs us that they were imperfectly given, and that the following is the complete and accurate version:

NIRVANA.

As the infant sinks to rest,
Nestled in its mother's breast,

Let me on thy bosom lie,
Loved and only deity!

Let me there a refuge find

From the motions of the mind;

From the strifes of men and brothers;
From a life all borne for others;

From night vigils dark and lonely.
Shared with doubting demons only;

From the flames of passion's fire;
From the gnawings of de ire;

From the tortures of despair;
From the black companion care;

From the slumber couched with sorrow;
From the waking on the morrow.

What to me are pathways golden
In some heaven of legends olden,
Harps and crowns and garish show
Modelled on the life below?

Life, still life, however varied;
Still a burden to be carried.

Naught of this, Gautama, give,
If to share it is to live!

What to me are time-worn creeds,
Web of barbarous names and deeds,
Woven threads of childish story,
Far descended, crude, and hoary,

Crimped to superstitious phases
In the infancy of races;

Born of fancies weird and elfish ;
Nursing aspirations selfish ;

Gilded with a spacious learning;
Cankering life with futile yearning

For a destiny supernal?
Better, far, the rest eternal:

Rest untroubled, tranquil, deep,

Where no souls their virgils keep:

Rest in sleep that knows not waking,
Thirsting, hunger, or heart-breaking;

Where the pain to be shall cease,
In Nirvana, perfect peace.

These impressive lines were originally published in September, 1880, in the Free Religious Index of Boston. Their author is George W. Chapman.

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THE BROOK.

A. TENNYSON.

66

"O babbling brook," says Edmund in his rhyme,

"Whence come you?" and the brook, why not? replies.

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COME from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

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