'TIS Heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days.
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
The bobolink has come, and, like the soul
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what
Save June! Dear June! Now God be praised for
Let him not boast who puts his armor on
As he who puts it off, the battle done.
Study yourselves; and most of all note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit.
Wisely, my son, while yet thy days are long,
And this fair change of seasons passes slow,
Gather and treasure up the good they yield,
All that they teach of virtue, of pure thoughts
And kind affections, reverence for thy God
And for thy brethren; so when thou shalt come
Into these barren years, thou mayst not bring
A mind unfurnished, and a withered heart.
W. C. Bryant.
Yet in her splendid strength, her eyes,
There lay the lightning of the skies.
A pent-up soul that sometimes grew
Impatient; why, she hardly knew.
The treasure sent
By God must not be idly spent.
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.
Yes, there's a luck in most things, and in none
More than in being born at the right time;
It boots not what the labor to be done,
Or feats of arms, or art, or building rhyme.
Not that the heavens the little can make great,
But many a man has lived an age too late.
R. H. Stoddard.
Little birds sit on the telegraph-wires,
And chitter, and flitter, and fold their wings;
Little things light on the lines of our lives,
Hopes, and joys, and acts of to-day;
And we think for these the Lord contrives,
Nor catch what the hidden lightnings say.
Yet from end to end His meaning arrives,
And His word runs underneath all the way.
Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.
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