Save that within her arms is laid

An infant, like his mother fair; Though never earth-born babe displayed Such beauties as are blended there.

No tints of healthful crimson glow
In that fair infant's polished cheek;
Paler his brow than mountain snow,
His dove-like eyes serenely meek.
No smiles around his lips bespeak

The joy of heart to childhood given;

But vain, O vain, it were to seek

For charms of earth in Child of Heaven!

For this is He, the mystic Child!

Yea, this the virgin's promised Son!

Behold the mother undefiled!

Behold her babe,—the Holy One! And do they wander forth alone,

By Israel slighted or forgot?

And when the Highest seeks "His own,"

Do e'en "His own" receive Him not?

Thomas Dale.

UNDER a palm-tree, by the green old Nile,

Lulled on His mother's breast, the fair child lics, With dove-like breathings, and a tender smile

Brooding above the slumber of His eyes;

M

While, through the stillness of the burning skies,
Lo! the dread works of Egypt's buried kings,
Temple and pyramid, beyond Him rise,

Regal and still as everlasting things.

Vain pomps! from Him, with that pure, flowery cheek, Soft shadowed by His mother's drooping head,

A new-born spirit, mighty, and yet meek,

O'er the whole world like vernal air shall spread,
And bid all earthly grandeurs cast the crown,
Before the suffering and the lowly, down.

Felicia Hemans.