BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

I have had my days of sadness: youth, which we review in age,

Spelling once again its syllables, was a blurred and blotted page.

Drifting down the tide of Time my tiny barque, unguided, passed

Toward the Mäelstrom of Manhood, puppet both of wave and blast.

But an all-protecting Providence watched the craft, when tempest-tost

On the Atlantic of Adversity; and the vessel was not lost.

Through the distance, when the clouds were lifted by the eddying breeze,

Sunny sapphire skies shone on me, with, beneath, Pacific seas.