Turning with a look of triumph
And a smile of proud disdain,
Sprang she forth into the river,
Sank, and rose-and sank again.
Onward swept the mighty river
On its journey to the sea;

But the mother's woes were ended—–
Child and mother both were free.

ROCK ME TO SLEEP.

Backward, turn backward, O Time! in your flight; Make me a child again just for to-night! Mother, come back from that echoless shore, Take me again to your heart as of yore; Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep! Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! I am so weary of toil and of tears,Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,Take them, and give me my childhood again! I have grown weary of dust and decay,Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away; Weary of sewing for others to reap;Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep! Tired of the hollow, the false, the untrue! Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you! Many a summer the grass has grown green, Blossomed and faded our faces between; Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain, Long I to-night for your presence again. Come from the silence so long and so deep;Rock me to sleep, mother,―rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead to-night,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;
Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!
Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened to your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood's years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;

Rock me to sleep, mother,-rock me to sleep!

MY MOTHER'S SONG.

BYRON W. KING.

'Mid the far-off hills, by a lowly cot,
Bloom the rose, the vine, the forget-me-not,
And there where zephyrs blow soft and sweet,
Where hearts are the truest of hearts that beat,
I have heard in the fading twilight glow,
The song of my Mother, sweet, sad and low.

Years, years have gone, but I hear it still,
And it wakes my heart with its magic thrill,
I hear that song with its cadence of tears
Over all the whirl of the troubled years:
O'er the toil and strife of the hurrying throng,
Come the echoing words of my Mother's song.

I know as she sings it, day after day,

Her locks are fast turning to silvery gray;

The form is more bending, the hand is more weak, And trembling and low are the tones that speak; She is failing fast, thro' suffering long,

But never more sweet was my Mother's song.

I know that a message must some day come
To call me again to that cottage home,
And there in the close of the crimson day
I shall find that sweet voice hushed for aye!
And kneeling low in the fading light,
I shall kiss the lips one last good night!

But thro' all years my heart shall beat;
As I tread life's path with my weary feet,
I shall hear that song as a voice divine,
And that lowly cot shall become a shrine!
O'er all life's sorrow and strife and wrong,
I shall hear the words of my Mother's song!

LARIAT BILL-THE ENGINEER'S STORY.

PUCK.

"Well, stranger, 'twas somewhere in 'sixty-nine,
I were runnin' the 'Frisco fast express;
An' from Murder Creek to Blasted Pine,
Were nigh onto eighteen mile, I guess.
The road were a down-grade all the way.

An' we pulled out of Murder a little late,
So I opened the throttle wide that day,

And a mile a minute were 'bout our gait.

"My fireman's name were Lariat Bill,

A quiet man with an easy way,

Who could rope a steer with a cow-boy's skill, Which he'd learned in Texas, I've heard him say; The coil were strong as tempered steel,

An' it went like a bolt from cross-bow flung, An' arter Bill changed from saddle to wheel, Just over his head in the cab it hung.

"Well, as I were sayin', we fairly flew

As we struck the curve at Buffalo Spring, An' I give her full steam an' put her through,

An' the engine rocked like a livin' thing; When all of a sudden I got a scare

For thar on the track were a little child! An' right in the path of the engine there, She held out her little hands and smiled!

“I jerked the lever and whistled for brakes,
The wheels threw sparks like a shower of gold;
But I knew the trouble a down-grade makes,
An' I set my teeth, an' my flesh grew cold.
Then Lariat Bill yanked his long lassoo,
An' out on the front of the engine crept―
He balanced a moment before he threw,
Then out in the air his lariat swept!"

He paused. There were tears in his honest eycs;
The stranger listened with bated breath—

"I know the rest of the tale," he cries:

"He snatched the child from the jaws of death! 'Twas the deed of a hero-from heroes bredWhose praises the very angels sing!"

The engineer shook his grizzled head,

And growled: "He didn't do no sich thing."

"He aimed for the stump of a big pine-tree,

An' the lariat caught with a double hitch, An' in less'n a second the train an' we

Were yanked off the track an' inter the ditch! 'Twere an awful smash, an' it laid me out, I ain't forgot it an' never shall;

'Were the passengers hurt?' Lemme see-aboutYes, it killed about forty—but saved the gal!”

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

BY JULIA MILLS DUNN.

The summer skies bend soft and blue,
The air is sweet with wild brook's laughter,
And over the orchard's grassy slope
Swift shadows are chasing each other after.
A youth and maiden, side by side-
A bashful girl and her rustic lover—
Stand by the turnstile old and brown
That leads to the field of blossoming clover.

She with a milk-pail on her arm,
Turns aside, her young cheeks glowing,

And hears down the lane the slow, dull tread Of the drove of cows that are homeward going. "Bessie," he said; at the sound she turned, Her blue eyes full of childish wonder;

"My mother is feeble, and lame, and old—
I need a wife at the farm-house yonder.
My heart is lonely, my home is drear,

I need your presence ever near me;
Will you be my guardian angel, dear;

Queen of my household, to guide and cheer me?”