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THE CROCUS.

BY MISS AGNES STRICKLAND.

Oh, pleasant is the hopeful hour
When from her lowly bed
We mark the early crocus flower,
Uprear her golden head.

To greet the first soft smile of spring,
She opes her joyous eye,

Ere blackthorn buds are blossoming,
Or sky-lark sings on high.

When southern breezes melt the snow,
She struggles into birth,
And sheds a bright rejoicing glow,
Like sunshine on the earth.

We deem the weary winter past,
When from her darksome tomb,

The merry crocus bursts at last,
In her perennial bloom,

And as her earthward part decays,
Her frame of living gold

Becomes, to our admiring gaze,

More beauteous to behold.

The shapeless bulb in autumn sown,
Is now a flower of spring;

The same 'tis called, yet all will own
It is another thing.

The bulb that slumbered in the ground,
Hath felt a quickening change,
And wakes, with bright apparel crowned,
As beautiful as strange.

E'en thus the spirits of the just,

In glorious forms shall rise,

When God shall summons from the dust, His chosen to the skies.

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CAAAAA

WHAT JACOB TOLD TO THE MILLER'S CHILDREN.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.

BY MARY HOWITT.

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HERE were only three persons sitting by the fire, old Jacob and the miller's two children, Xavier and little Mary. The children would not let the old man have any peace till he consented to tell them each a story.

The first he told was for Xavier, a rosy-cheeked lad, of eight years old. He began thus:

"Last summer, there was in that large fir tree, which stands above the church, and leans back among the rocks and hazel bushes, a large nest with a roof to it, and in this nest there were three young squirrels. One day, the mother brought them some juicy fir-cones to eat, and then seated herself outside the nest upon a long crooked branch to wash her face with her fore-feet. While she was thus employed a large falcon dropped, like a great stone out of the sky; pounced upon her, snatched her up in his talons, and carried her off to the nearest rock, where he ate her for his breakfast. He ate her up, every morsel, so that nothing remained of the poor little squirrel, but her bushy tail, and that was carried down by the wind into the village street, where it was picked up by little Xavier."

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