ering bugs in the flowers.

EDGAR FAWCETT.

DECLAMATION.

SHAKSPEARE.

She sat in her eternal house,
The sovereign mother of mankind;
Before her was the peopled world,
The hollow night behind.

"Below my feet the thunders break,
Above my head the stars rejoice;
But man, although he babbles much,
Has never found a voice.

"Ten thousand years have come and gone,
And not an hour of any day
But he has dumbly looked to me
The things he could not say.

"It shall be so no more," she said;
And then, revolving in her mind,
She thought, "I will create a child
Shall speak for all his kind."

It was the spring-time of the year,
And, lo! where Avon's waters flow,
The child, her darling, came on earth
Three hundred years ago.

There was no portent in the sky,
No cry, like Pan's, along the seas,
Nor hovered round his baby mouth
The swarm of classic bees.

What other children were he was;
If more, 'twas not to mortal ken;
The being likest to mankind
Made him the man of men.

Before he came, his like was not,
Nor left he heirs to share his powers.
The mighty mother sent him here
To be her voice and ours;

To be her oracle to man;
To be what man may be to her;
Between the Maker and the made
The best interpreter.

RICHARD H. STODDARD.

SMILES AND TEARS.

Both sword and guns are strong, no doubt,
And so are tongue and pen,
And so are sheaves of good bank-notes,
To sway the souls of men;
But guns and swords, and gold and thought,
Though mighty in their sphere,
Are often poorer than a smile,
And weaker than a tear.

NICOLO'S LITTLE FRIEND.

"Nicolo, Nicolo, where are you? Where have you hidden yourself? Come
here; I want you."

It was a very bright-eyed little girl who spoke these words--under a
bright sky, too--the sunny sky of Italy.

But Nicolo, a boy some years older than herself, looked far from
bright or happy; he was lying full length on the ground in the
sunlight; but his face was overcast and melancholy.

"Lazy fellow!" said little Gianetta, laughingly, as she came up to
him; "I am out of breath calling to you. Come along; I want you.
Mother has done with me, and we can make some music together."

Bu