In part transfigured through the open door

Appears the selfsame scene.

Seated I see the two again,

But not alone; they entertain

A little angel unaware,

With face as round as is the moon;
A royal guest with flaxen hair,
Who, throned upon his lofty chair,
Drums on the table with his spoon,
Then drops it careless on the floor,
To grasp at things unseen before.
Are these celestial manners? these
The ways that win, the arts that please?
Ah, yes; consider well the guest,
And whatsoe'er he does seems best;
He ruleth by the right divine
Of helplessness, so lately born
In purple chambers of the morn,
As sovereign over thee and thine.
He speaketh not, and yet there lies
A conversation in his eyes;
The golden silence of the Greek,
The gravest wisdom of the wise,
Not spoken in language, but in looks
More legible than printed books,
As if he could but would not speak.

And now, O monarch absolute,
Thy power is put to proof; for lo!
Resistless, fathomless, and slow,
The nurse comes rustling like the sea,
And pushes back thy chair and thee,
And so good night to King Canute.

As one who walking in the forest sees
A lovely landscape through the parted trees,
Then sees it not for boughs that intervene,
Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed
Through drifting clouds, and then again con-

cealed,

So I beheld the scene.

There are two guests at table now;
The king, deposed, and older grown,
No longer occupies the throne,
The crown is on his sister's brow;
A princess from the Fairy Tales;
The very pattern girl of girls,

All covered and embowered in curls,
Rose tinted from the Isle of Flowers,
And sailing with soft silken sails
From far-off Dreamland into ours.
Above their bowls with rims of blue
Four azure eyes of deeper hue
Are looking, dreamy with delight;
Limpid as planets that emerge
Above the ocean's rounded verge,

Soft shining through the summer night,
Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see
Beyond the horizon of their bowls;
Nor care they for the world that rolls
With all its freight of troubled souls
Into the days that are to be.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

BABY LOUISE.

I'm in love with you, Baby Louise! With your silken hair, and your soft blue eyes,

And the dreamy wisdom that in them lies,

And the faint, sweet smile you brought from the

skies,

God's sunshine, Baby Louise.

When you fold your hands, Baby Louise, Your hands, like a fairy's, so tiny and fair, With a pretty, innocent, saint-like air, Are you trying to think of some angel-taught

prayer

You learned above, Baby Louise?

I'm in love with you, Baby Louise! Why you never raise your beautiful head! Some day, little one, your cheek will grow red With a flush of delight, to hear the words said, "I love you," Baby Louise.

Do you hear me, Baby Louise?

I have sung your praises for nearly an hour, And your lashes keep drooping lower and lower, And you've gone to sleep, like a weary flower, Ungrateful Baby Louise!

MARGARET EYTINGE.

THE ANGEL'S WHISPER.

[In Ireland they have a pretty fancy, that, when a child smiles in its sleep, it is "talking with angels."]

A BABY was sleeping;

Its mother was weeping,

For her husband was far on the wild raging sea;

And the tempest was swelling
Round the fisherman's dwelling;

And she cried, "Dermot, darling, O come back to me!"

Her beads while she numbered,

The baby still slumbered,

And smiled in her face as she bended her knee: "O, blest be that warning,

My child, thy sleep adorning, For I know that the angels are whispering with

thee.