FIVE YEARS OLD.

 THE FIRST GRIEF.

&BE little head droops like a broken blossom
 Beneath the pelting of a sudden rain;
With bitter sobbing heaves the baby bosom;
 The sweet lips wear the quivering curve of pain.
What sorrow moves the childish heart, -so heavy
 She thinks it never will be light again?

 The violet eyes, all misty with their weeping,
 Gaze dimly at an empty cage close by,
 Between whose wires, while all the house was sleeping
 The petted bird found narrow room to fly,
 And left the little mistress who had loved him,
 To seek with joyous wing his own free sky.

The day is fair, and from the leafy shadows
 The wild birds' merry morning carols ring.
Not all the sunshine in a thousand meadows
 To one small grieving heart can brightness bring.
Not all the music of the mighty forest
 Is sweet as was the song her bird could sing.

 But when another happy dawn is breaking,
 Her grief shall vanish with the shadows gray;
 And of the young heart's unaccustomed aching
 No other sign, save this alone, shall stay;-
 To-morrow's smiles shall owe a deeper sweetness
 To all the tearful trouble of to-day.
 MARGARET JOHNSON