LITTLE WORDS.

How wise he is! He can talk in Greek!
There isn't a language he cannot speak.
The very measure the Psalmist sung
He carries at will on the tip of his tongue.
When he argues in English, why, every word
Is almost the biggest that ever you heard!
That is, when he talks with papa it's so
With me it's another affair, you must know.

Little one-syllable words, you see,

Are all he is willing to waste upon me:

So he calls me his rose, his bird, and his pet,

And says it quite often lest I should forget;

While his stock of verbs grows so wondrously small,
You'd think he had ne'er opened Webster at all:
It's only "Ah! do you?" or
or "Will you, my dove?"
Or else it's "I love," "I love," and "I love."

And when we walk out in the starry night,
Though he knows the Zodiac's rounded height,
With its Gemini, Scorpio, Leo, and all,
Its satellites, planets, and nebulæ small;

LITTLE WORDS.

And though in a flash he could fasten his eye on
The Dipper, and Crown, and the Belt of Orion,
Not once does he mention the wonders above,
But just whispers softly, "My own!" and "I love!"

Whenever they tease me the girls and the boys-
With Mrs. Professor" or "classical joys,"

Or ask if his passion he deigns to speak

In Hebrew, or Sanscrit, or simple Greek,
I try to summon a look of steel,

And hide the joy that I really feel;

For they'd laugh still more if they knew the truth,
How meek a Professor can be, forsooth!

Though well I know in the times to come

Great thoughts shall preside in our happy home,
And to hold forever his loving looks

I must bend my head over musty books,
And be as learned as ever I can,

To do full justice to such a man

Yet the future is bright for, like song of birds,
My soul is filled with his little words.

MARY ELIZABETH DODge.

OVER THE RIVER.

OVER the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side;

The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue; He crossed in the twilight, gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. We saw not the angels who met him there, The gates of the city we could not see: Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another, the household pet;
Her brown curls wave in the gentle gale:
Darling Minnie! I see her yet.

She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;
We felt it glide from the silver sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark.
We know she is safe on the farther side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be:

Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

OVER THE RIVER.

For none return from those quiet shores,
Who cross with the boatman cold and pale.
We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning hearts:
They cross the stream and are gone for aye.
We may not sunder the veil apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day;
We only know that their barks no more

May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea;
Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's gold
Is flushing river and hill and shore,

I shall one day stand by the water cold

And list for the sound of the boatman's oar:
I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail,
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand,
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale,
To the better shore of the spirit-land.
I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,

The Angel of Death shall carry me.

NANCY AMELIA WOODBURY PRIEST.

DANIEL GRAY.

IF I shall ever win the home in heaven
For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and pray,
In the great company of the forgiven

I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.

I knew him well; in fact, few knew him better;
For my young eyes oft read for him the Word,
And saw how meekly from the crystal letter
He drank the life of his beloved Lord.

Old Daniel Gray was not a man who lifted
On ready words his freight of gratitude,
Nor was he called among the gifted,

In the prayer meetings of his neighborhood.

He had a few old-fashioned words and phrases, Linked in with sacred texts and Sunday rhymes ; And I suppose that in his prayers and graces,

I've heard them all at least a thousand times.

1 see him now his form, his face, his motions, His homespun habit, and his silver hair, And hear the language of his trite devotions,

Risin behind the straight-backed kitchen chair.