Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/55

 56 THE OLD YEAR.-“WE SEE THE ROSES BLOOM.”

go once a week, you know, to teach poor children to sew, and from there to Mrs. Morgan’s, whose sick child you went to see yesterday, how destitute they are, Walter! And then I came straight home, oh, no! I remember I did step into poor Neal’s a moment to see how he did since the amputation. He said so much about your kindness to him!”

“No wonder you look tired! I will go with you the next time you go to Mrs. Morgan’s. I don’t like to have you go there alone, I’m afraid you’ll meet with another sailor.”

“You mean that you are afraid I shall meet with another handsome young man, who will rescue me from the sailor, and then fall in love with me,” Anne answers, looking up archly from the snarl she is trying to pick out.

“People don’t meet with such rare good for¬ tune as that very often,” he says, returning her glance, “and on the whole, I think it’s well they don’t, else we should have such numbers of young ladies going round doing good for the sake of being rewarded with a lover, which wouldn’t be a very noble motive for usefulness, eh, Anne?”

“That wasn’t what waked me up to see how much there was for me to do in the world, and that because I was a young lady with no care, that was no reason why I should live only for my own enjoyment: and I am quite ashamed of you, Walter, for daring to insinuate that there is a young lady in the world who would act upon such a contemptible thought: I shall punish you for the remark by giving you another skein of silk to hold. Did I ever tell you that I really wanted once to go on a foreign mission? But cousin Mary showed me that since I couldn’t, I must go on a home mission.”

“What a pity you did not go on the foreign! Poor Feejee Islanders, what a dainty dish the cannibals lost!”

THE OLD YEAR.

BY LENA T. Y L B.

 Thou art gone, old year, Gone away: In the past, on thy bier To decay. Thou hast carried smiles and tears— Thou hast carried hopes and fears, With thee from the world away, Far away!

I am sadly sighing, All for theo! For the year, now dying. Unto me Brought rich blessings blight and gay, Taught mo how to kneel and pray, Banished saddening thoughts away, Yes for aye!

Weep for the old year, Dying lone; Silently drop a tear, Ue is gone! Gone! with sorrows unrecorded— Gone! to bo by angels gnarded— Gone! from earthly things away, Far away!

Winds are sadly moaning O’er thy grave— Forest trees are groaning As they wave— Tears are falling fast and thickly— Smiling eyes beam out as quickly, As a requiem for thee, All for thee! 

“WE SEE THE ROSES BLOOM.”

BY CLARENCE  The crimson hues on forest leaves Speak sadly to my heart,

And whispor of the coming days.

When you and I must part;

But gazing o’er the waste of years.

Beyond the present gloom—

There, in a fair, elysian clime,

We see the roses bloom.

The summer comes—then softly wanes;

The flowers bloom—then die;

And change is written on each tiling Beneath the arching sky.

Soft music for a while may cheer Earth's weary, trusting child;

But cares soon change the soothing straiu To dirge notes, sad and wild.

There ia a clime—it is not far,

Where Summers never wane;

Where flowers droop not, music sinks not To a wild, desponding strain.

And looking o'er our present cares, Beyond a quiet tomb,

Tis there, ’tra there, in that bright climo, We see the roses bloom! 