ly and low,
To my little _great_-grandchild the 'lullaby--O.'

"Which, catching my senses as idly they stray
On the pinions of memory, bears me away
To the far-distant realms of my own childhood's shore,
Where the quaint old-time melody greets me once more.

"Aye! dearie, 'tis hard when one's memory is straying--
And back 'mongst the old scenes so fondly delaying--
'Tis hard to wake up to the fact that old age
In life's book of years will soon turn the last page.

"Yet, dearie, I look on your young, happy face,
All tender with motherhood's newly-taught grace,
And realize, indeed, that Time steadily flies,
Nor lingers to dally 'neath youth's joyous skies!

[Illustration:"_On Grandma's thin cheek falls a kiss_"]

"But speed as he may, be it never so fast,
The thoughts which go winging their way to the Past
Are swifter than Time, as you'll learn on some day
When you, like your Grandma, are wrinkled and grey."

On Grandma's thin cheek falls a kiss soft and sweet,
Ere the young mother hastens with step all so fleet,
To quiet her baby, whose startled grieved cry
Can only be hushed with the old lullaby--

[Illustration: Words and music:
"Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed."]

Crooning it softly, and crooning it low,
Till again into slumber-land baby will go,
While Grandma still sits in the shadowy room
And smiles as the lullaby floats thro' the gloom.

Now, as she sits thinking and smiling the while,
Behold! Grandpa enters, and answering her smile
(Which even the gloom from his eyes cannot hide),
Draws near the old chair, and sits close at her side.

Their hands steal together; dear hands, which have clung
Thro' weal and thro' woe from the years which were young
Till now, when by age made unsteady and weak,
They yet tell the love which e'en lips may not speak.

"Dear heart!" murmurs Grandpa, "I'm thinking to-night--
As I look at the heavens with starlight so bright--
And note how the moments so surely and fast,
Will bring us the close of the year almost past--

"I'm thinking how like to old age it does seem,
And how o'er life's evening for you and me gleam
The stars of God's mercies, to guide on their way
The souls which are speeding towards heaven's glad day."

"Ay, John," answers Grandma, "like children are we
In the 'arms everlasting' just longing to be;
Full soon you and I will be summoned to rest,
And close tired eyes on the dear Father's breast."

[Illustration]