the
voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.

122

Old birds are hard to pluck.

123

A man ashamed of his humble birth is never alone, because all good
people are ashamed of him for being ashamed.

124

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that riseth with us, our life's star,
Hath elsewhere had its setting,
And cometh from afar.

--_Wordsworth._

125

YOUTH.

My birthday!--What a different sound
That word had in my youthful ears!
And now each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears.

--_Moore._

126

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others, can not keep it from
themselves.

--_Barrie._

127

_Boasters_--For boasters the world has no use; but it is always on the
lookout for men who do things. Solomon said: "Let another man praise
thee, and not thine own lips."

128

GOOD BOOK-KEEPERS.

Sir Walter Scott, in lending a book one day to a friend, cautioned him
to be punctual in returning it. "This is really necessary," said the
poet in apology; "for though many of my friends are bad
_arithmeticians_, I observe almost all of them to be good
_book-keepers_."

129

AN EXPERIENCE AND A MORAL.

I lent my love a book one day;
She brought it back; I laid it by:
'Twas little either had to say,--
She was so strange, and I so shy.

But yet we loved indifferent things,--
The sprouting buds, the birds in tune,--
And Time stood still and wreathed his wings
With rosy links from June to June.

For her, what task to dare or do?
What peril tempt? What hardship bear?
But with her--ah! she never knew
My heart, and what was hidden there!

And she with me, so cold and coy,
Seemed like a maid bereft of sense;
But in the crowd, all life and joy,
And full of blushful impudence.

She married,--well, a woman needs
Someone, her life and love to share,--
And little cares sprang up like weeds
And played around her elbow-chair.

Years rolled by--and I, content,
Trimmed my own lamp, and kept it bright,
Till age's touch, my hair besprent
With rays and gleams of silver