Mrs. Mary Noel McDonald

BRIEF hour for thought! the dark and wintry day

Is deepening into night, though no pale star

To guide the traveller with its timorous ray

Yet glimmers in the purple depths afar.

Darkness comes stealing on;—from labor free,

The weary woodman seeks his cottage door,

Where mirthful children on the sanded floor

Leap at his coming, and press round his knee.

From distant casements lights are twinkling now,

Where busy matrons still the needle ply,

Or some pale student strains the anxious eye,

And bends o’er classic page with thoughtful brow.

Stir we the fire, seek fancy’s wild domain,

And rear some airy fabric’s dizzy height again.