Their voices whine and their eyes are wet
In this doleful country of Phussandphret.

Now, if ever you find your feet are set
On the downhill road into Phussandphret,
Turn and travel the other way,

Or you never will know a happy day.
Follow some cheerful face; 'twill guide
To the land of Look-at-the-Pleasant-side.
Then something bright you will always see,
No matter how dark the day may be.

You'll smile at your tasks and laugh in your dreams,
And learn that no ill is as bad as it seems.

So lose no time, but haste to get

As far as you can from Phussandphret.

THO

THE TYPEWRITER TUNE.

HOUGH its coming be slow, we can all feel we know
That the "popular song" has its end,

And the hand-organ lay cannot last all the day;
Its horrors must cease to ascend;

But the typewriter tune, with its terrible twist,
Incessant responds to the rubber-hung wrist,
With its plick, plack, clinkety, clang!
Pluckety, pluckety, bang!

Your heart may be light and the future seem bright,
Ere you come within range of its sound,

But your spirits will sink to your shoes in a wink
From the noises that hover around,

When the alphabet goblins, so crooked and weak,
Are tortured till pain makes them shiver and squeak
With a plick, plack, clinkety, clang!

Pluckety, pluckety, bang.

THE MIRACLE OF CANA.

FRED EMERSON BROOKS.

[By permission of the author.]

HE waterpots were filled at God's behest;

TH

Yet in the marriage wine no grape was pressed!

No tired feet the weary wine-press trod

To make this sacred vintage of our God!
As Nature doth proclaim a power divine,
Each drop of moisture turned itself to wine

In spite of arguments in Jesus met,
The world is full of doubting skeptics yet;
Believing naught in heaven or earth divine,
They doubt this iniracle of Palestine;
They find the Holy Bible filled with flaws,
And pin their doubting faith to Nature's laws.

Ye scoffers of our sacred Lord, pray tell
Who tinted first the water in the well?
Who painted atmospheric moisture blue?

And
gave the ocean waves their constant hue?
Whose moisture raised in clouds all colors lack;
The fleecy ones so white, the storm king black.
Save where the evening sun's bright rays incline
To turn this fleecy moisture into wine,

And lay a benediction on them all

Like purple grapes hung on a golden wall?
'Twas thus our Lord a sacred radiance shed,
Slow turning Cana's water vintage red.

If lilies, at His bidding, from the soil
Spring up, that neither know to spin nor toil;
In beauty yet more gorgeously arrayed
Than he of old who that great temple made,

Then why may not the gentle evening's dew,
At God's command take on a ruddy hue?

This whirling, surging world was made by One
Who might have made the wine as rivers run;
Yet put a sweeter nectar in the rills,
Fresh rippling from the vintage of the hills.
Watch Nature's miracle when day is dead,
And blushing Helios his good night said,
Slow dipping his hot face in cooling brine
Turns all the ocean billows into wine.

The sun and rain stretch o'er the earth a bow With tints more beautiful than wine can show— A frescoed arch in gorgeous colors seven

A bridge where weak belief may walk to heaven.

Sometimes, athwart a sunset on the plain,
A passing storm-cloud dropping its ruby rain,
Because a God, whose face is hid from view,
Lets just a little glory filter through
This great libation poured at Nature's shrine,
To fill Sol's golden cup with evening wine ?

Since Nature doth such miracles perform,
Why may not He who makes and rules the storm,
Of all his miracles the first and least,

Tint a few drops for Cana's wedding-feast?

The greatest marriage at the end shall be
When time is wedded to eternity!

All bidden are, the greatest and the least,

To taste the wine at heaven's great wedding-feast, Where all the ransomed universe shall sing,

"Hosanna, to the everlasting King!"

THR

I CAN'T, I WON'T, AND I WILL.

HREE little boys in a rollicking mood, out in the snow at play.

Their hearts are light, for the sun was bright on that glorious

winter day.

Three little boys with shouts of glee slide down a snowy hill, And the names of the rollicking little boys are "I Can't,” “I Won't," and "I Will."

But play must cease; and a warning voice calls out from the open door,

"Come, boys, here's a task for your nimble hands; we must have it done by four."

"I Will" speeds away at his mother's command, with a cheerful and sunny face.

And "I Can't" follows on with a murmur and groan, at a weary and lagging pace.

But I Won't," with a dark and angry frown, goes sautering down the street,

And sullenly idles the time away till he thinks the task complete.

At school, "I Will" learns his lessons as well, and is seldom absent or late;

"I Can't" finds the lessons all too hard; "I Won't" hates books and slate.

So the seasons come and the seasons go, in their never-ceasing

race,

And each little boy, now a stalwart man, in the busy world finds his place.

"I Will " with a courage undaunted toils, and with high and

resolute aim,

And the world is better because he lives, and he gains both honor and fame.

"I Can't" finds life an uphill road; he faints in adversity, And spends his life unloved and unknown in hopeless poverty.

"I Won't" opposes all projects and plans, and scoffs at what others have wrought,

And so in his selfish idleness wrapped, he dies and is soon forgot.

THE SEVEN STAGES.

NLY a baby, kissed and caressed,
Gently held to a mother's breast.

Only a child toddling alone,
Brightening now its happy home.

Only a boy trudging to school,
Governed now by a sterner rule.

Only a youth living in dreams,
Full of promise, life now seems.

Only a man battling with life
Shared in now by a loving wife.

Only a father burdened with care,
Silver threads in dark brown hair.

Only a graybeard, toddling again,
Growing old and full of pain.

Only a mound o'ergrown with grass,
Dreams unrealized-rest at last.