XII. 



STAR-GAZING. 



" Ye quenchless stars ! so eloquently bright, 

 Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night, 

 While half the world is lapp'd in downy dreams, 

 And round the lattice creep your midnight beams, 

 How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes, 

 In lambent beauty looking from the'skies I " 



ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 



the happy, trustful years of childhood 

 how often we looked up with awe at 

 the beautiful stars as they flashed and 

 sparkled " like diamonds in the sky," 

 and thought of them as the homes of angels whither 

 we fain would fly ! We knew those bright orbs 

 better then, perhaps, and loved them more than 

 ever since, for they seemed to bring us near to 

 heaven, and spoke to us of God. But, like many 

 a sweet dream of early days, this vision of a real 

 heaven and an ever-present God has grown sadly 

 dim as the cold mists of rationalism with its pitiless 

 enforcement of bare facts and positive realities have 

 circled round it. Now, alas ! the spirit too often 

 glances into the great lonely sky, and shivers with 



