Hushed the sweet cadences of bird and bee;
  Dumb the last echo to soft music trained,
    And warmth and life are a past memory: 
  Thus, buried deep within dull Winter’s rime,
  Love dreamless sleeps through the long Winter-time.

* * * * *

LIFE IN THE WOODS.—­A SONG.

BY GEO. P. MORRIS.

  A merry life does the hunter lead! 
    He wakes with the dawn of day;
  He whistles his dog—­he mounts his steed,
    And sends to the woods away! 
  The lightsome tramp of the deer he’ll mark,
    As they troop in herds along;
  And his rifle startles the cheerful lark,
    As she carols his morning song.

  The hunter’s life is the life for me! 
    That is the life for a man! 
  Let others sing of a home on the sea,
    But match me the woods if you can. 
  Then give me a gun—­I’ve an eye to mark
    The deer, as they bound along! 
  My steed, dog, and gun, and the cheerful lark,
    To carol my morning song.

[Illustration:  THE SYLPHS OF THE SEASONS]

* * * * *

WHAT IS LIFE?

BY MARY M. CHASE.

One sunshiny afternoon, a little girl sat in a wood playing with moss and stones.  She was a pretty child; but there was a wishful, earnest look in her eye, at times, that made people say, “She is a good little girl; but she won’t live long.”  But she did not think of that to-day, for a fine western wind was shaking the branches merrily above her head, and a family of young rabbits that lived near by kept peeping out to watch her motions.  She threw bread to the rabbits from the pockets of her apron, and laughed to see them eat.  She laughed, also, to hear the wild, boisterous wind shouting among the leaves, and then she sang parts of a song that she had imperfectly learned—­

  “Hurrah for the oak! for the brave old oak,
    That hath ruled in the greenwood long!”

and the louder the wind roared, the louder she sang.  Presently, a light-winged seed swept by her; she reached out her pretty hand and caught it.  It was an ugly brown seed; but she said, as she looked at it—­

“Mother says, if I plant a seed, may be it will grow to be a tree.  So I will see.”

Then she scraped away a little of the mellow earth, and put the seed safely down, and covered it again.  She made a little paling around the spot With dry sticks and twigs, and then a thoughtful mood came over her.

That brown seed is dead now, thought she; but it will lie there in the dark a great while, and then green leaves will come up, and a stem will grow; and some day it will be a great tree.  Then it will live.  But, if it is dead now, how can it ever live?  What a strange thing life is!  What makes life?  It can’t be the sunshine; for that has fallen on these stones ever so many years, and they are dead yet:  and it can’t be the rain; for these broken sticks are wet very often, and they don’t grow.  What is life?