FISHING.

(From the painting by Florence A. Saltmer.)

[JULY.]

By ERIC BROAD.

Now is the noon of summer’s sweet content

O’er field and hedgerow, valley and high hill;

And hushed the music of the laughing rill

Whose strength is stolen and whose song is spent!

With anxious twitter all the birds lament

The sudden gloom; the air grows strangely still.

Vague murmurs all the valley seem to fill;

The sun is blotted from the firmament.

Hark! tis the diapason of God’s organ rolled

Through all the field of stars; chord follows chord

The march triumphant of our Blessed Lord,

Who rides the sky in chariot of gold;

And then the gloom is rent; with swift accord

The beams, with golden arms, our forms enfold!

By MARGARET INNES.