We could not weep upon the day
  When her pure spirit passed away;
  We thought we read the mystery
  Which in her life there seemed to be—­
  That she was not our own, but lent
  To us little while, and sent
  An angel child, what others preach
  Of heavenly purity, to teach,
  In ways more eloquent than speech—­
  And chiefly by that raptured eye
  Which seemed to look beyond the sky,
  And that abstraction, listening
  To hear the choir of seraphs sing.

  We thought that death did seem to her
  Of long-lost joy the harbinger—­
  Like an old household servant, come
  To take the willing scholar home;
  The school-house, it was very dear,
  But then the holidays were near;
  And why should she be lingering here? 
  Softly the servant bore the child
  Who at her parting turned and smiled,
  And looked back to us, till the night
  For ever hid her from our sight.

LIFE A TREADMILL.

WHO says that life is a treadmill?

You, merchant, when, after a weary day of measuring cotton-cloth or numbering flower barrels, bowing to customers or taking account of stock, you stumble homeward, thinking to yourself that the moon is a tolerable substitute for gas light, to prevent people from running against the posts—­and then, by chance, recall the time when, a school-boy, you read about “chaste Dian” in your Latin books, and discovered a striking resemblance to moonbeams in certain blue eyes that beamed upon you from the opposite side of the school-room.

Ah! those were the days when brick side-walks were as elastic as India rubber beneath your feet; shop windows were an exhibition of transparencies to amuse children and young people, and the world in prospect was one long pleasure excursion.  Then you drank the bright effervescence in your glass of soda-water, and now you must swallow the cold, flat settlings, or not get your money’s worth.  Long ago you found out that the moon is the origin of moonshine, that blue eyes are not quite as fascinating under gray hair and behind spectacles, and that “money answereth all things.”

You say so, clerk or bank-teller, when you look up from your books at the new-fallen snow glistening in the morning light, and feel something like the prancing of horses’ hoofs in the soles of your boots, and hear the jingling of sleigh bells in your mind’s ear, long after the sound of them has passed from your veritable auriculars.

You say so, teacher, while going through the daily drill of your A B C regiments, your multiplication table platoons, and your chirographical battalions.

You say so, factory girl, passing backward and forward from the noise and whirl of wheels in the mills, to the whirl and noise of wheels in your dreams.

You say so, milliner’s apprentice, as you sit down to sew gay ribbons on gay bonnets, and stand up to try gay bonnets on gay heads.