Oh, how bright were the wheels, that told
    Of the lapse of time, as they moved round slow;
  And the hands, as they swept o’er the dial of gold,
    Seemed to point to the girl below. 
  And lo! she had changed:  in a few short hours
  Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers,
  That she held in her outstretched hands, and flung
  This way and that, as she, dancing, swung
  In the fulness of grace and of womanly pride,
  That told me she soon was to be a bride;
  Yet then, when expecting her happiest day,
  In the same sweet voice I heard her say,
      “Passing away! passing away!”

  While I gazed at that fair one’s cheek, a shade
    Of thought or care stole softly over,
  Like that by a cloud in a summer’s day made,
    Looking down on a field of blossoming clover. 
  The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush
  Had something lost of its brilliant blush;
  And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels,
  That marched so calmly round above her,
  Was a little dimmed,—­as when evening steals
    Upon noon’s hot face.  Yet one couldn’t but love her,
  For she looked like a mother whose first babe lay
  Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day;
  And she seemed, in the same silver tone, to say,
      “Passing away! passing away!”

  While yet I looked, what a change there came! 
    Her eye was quenched, and her cheek was wan;
  Stooping and staffed was her withered frame,
    Yet just as busily swung she on;
  The garland beneath her had fallen to dust;
  The wheels above her were eaten with rust: 
  The hands, that over the dial swept,
  Grew crooked and tarnished, but on they kept
  And still there came that silver tone
  From the shrivelled lips of the toothless crone
  (Let me never forget till my dying day
  The tone or the burden of her lay),
      “Passing away! passing away!”

JOHN PIERPONT.

* * * * *

LINES

    FOUND IN HIS BIBLE IN THE GATE-HOUSE AT WESTMINSTER.

  E’en such is time; that takes in trust
    Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
  And pays us but with earth and dust;
  Who in the dark and silent grave,
  When we have wandered all our ways,
  Shuts up the story of our days: 
  But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
  My God shall raise me up, I trust.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

* * * * *

MY AIN COUNTREE.

    “But now they desire a better country, that is, an
    heavenly.”—­HEBREWS xi. 16.

  I’m far frae my hame, an’ I’m weary aftenwhiles,
  For the langed-for hame-bringing, an’ my Father’s welcome smiles;
  I’ll never be fu’ content, until mine een do see
  The shining gates o’ heaven an’ my ain countree.