Set round with three times eight
Large diamonds, clear and bright,
And each with sixty smaller ones,
All changeful as the light.

Lost where the thoughtless throng
In fashion's mazes wind,
Where warbleth fashion's song,
Leaving a sting behind;
Yet to my hand 't was given
A golden harp to buy,
Such as the white-robed choir attune
To deathless minstrelsy.

Lost! lost! lost!

I feel all search is vain; That gem of countless cost Can ne'er be mine again;

I offer no reward,

For though these heart-strings sever,
I know that Heaven-intrusted gift
Is reft away forever.

But when the sea and land

Like burning scroll have fled,

I'll see it in His hand;

Who judgeth quick and dead;
And when of waste and loss
That man can ne'er repair,
The dread inquiry meets my soul,
What shall it answer there?

Mrs. L. H. Sigourney.

I

A WOMAN'S CONCLUSIONS.

SAID, if I might go back again

To the very hour and place of my birth; Might have my life whatever I chose,

And live it in any part of the earth;

Put perfect sunshine into my sky,

Banish the shadow of sorrow and doubt; Have all my happiness multiplied,

And all my suffering stricken out;

If I could have known, in the years now gone, The best that a woman comes to know; Could have had whatever will make her blest, Or whatever she thinks will make her so;

Have found the highest and purest bliss,

That the bridal wreath and ring inclose, And gained the one out of all the world That my heart as well as my reason chose;

And if this had been, and I stood to-night

By my children, lying asleep in their beds, And could count in my prayers, for a rosary, The shining row of their golden heads;

Yea, I said, if a miracle such as this

Could be wrought for me, at my bidding, still I would choose to have my past as it is, And to let my future come as it will!

I would not make the path I have trod

More pleasant or even, more straight or wide;

Nor change my course the breadth of a hair,
This way or that way, to either side.

My past is mine, and I take it all;

Its weakness, its folly, if you please;
Nay, even my sins, if you come to that,
May have been my helps, not hindrances!

If I saved my body from the flames

Because that once I had burned my hand; Or kept myself from a greater sin

By doing a less-you will understand.

It was better I suffered a little pain,
Better I sinned for a little time,

If the smarting warned me back from death,
And the sting of sin withheld from crime.

Who knows its strength by trial, will know
What strength must be set against a sin;
And how temptation is overcome,

He has learned who has felt its power within!

And who knows how a life at the last may show ? Why, look at the moon from where we stand! Opaque, uneven, you say; yet it shines,

A luminous sphere, complete and grand!

So let my past stand, just as it stands,
And let me now, as I may, grow old;

I am what I am, and my life for me

Is the best, or it had not been, I hold.

Phoebe Cary.

THE CHARITY DINNER.

TIME: half-past six o'clock. Place: The London Tavern. Occasion: Fifteenth Annual Festival of the Society for the Distribution of Blankets and Top-Boots among the natives of the Cannibal Islands.

N entering the room, we find more than two hundred noblemen and gentlemen already assembled, and the number is increasing every minute. The preparations are now complete, and we are in readiness to receive the chairman. He advances smilingly to his post at the principal table, amid deafening and longcontinued cheers.

The dinner now makes its appearance, and we yield up ourselves to the enjoyments of eating and drinking. These important duties finished, the real business of the evening commences. The usual loyal toasts having been given, the noble chairman rises, and, after passing his fingers through his hair, he places his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, gives a short preparatory cough, accompanied by a vacant stare round the room, and commences as follows:

"MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN: It is with feelings of mingled pleasure and regret that I appear before you this evening of pleasure, to find that this excellent and world-wide known society is in so promising a condition; and of regret, that you have not chosen a worthier chairman; in fact, one who is more capable than myself of dealing with a subject of such vital importance as this. (Loud cheers.) But, although I may be unworthy of the honor, I am proud to state that I have been a subscriber to this society from its

commencement; feeling sure that nothing can tend more to the advancement of civilization, social reform, fireside comfort, and domestic economy among the Cannibals, than the diffusion of blankets and top-boots. (Tremendous cheering, which lasts for several minutes.) Here, in this England of ours, which is an island surrounded by water, as I suppose you all know- or, as our great poet so truthfully and beautifully expresses the same fact, 'England bound in by the triumphant sea' — what, down the long vista of years, have conduced more to our successes in arms, and arts, and song, than blankets? Indeed, I never gaze upon a blanket without my thoughts reverting fondly to the days of my early childhood. Where should we all have been now but for those warm and fleecy coverings? My Lords and Gentlemen! Our first and tender memories are all associated with blankets: blankets when in our nurses' arms, blankets in our cradles, blankets in our cribs, blankets to our French bedsteads in our school-days, and blankets to our marital fourposters now. Therefore, I say, it becomes our bounden duty as men—and, with feelings of pride, I add, as Englishmen - to initiate the untutored savage, the wild and somewhat uncultivated denizen of the prairie, into the comfort and warmth of blankets; and to supply him, as far as practicable, with those reasonable, seasonable, luxurious, and useful appendages. At such a moment as this, the lines of another poet strike familiarly upon the ear. Let me see, they are something like this -ah- - ah

'Blankets have charms to soothe the savage breast,