The songs of the birds were tender and sad, Yet I could not say they were not glad. Nature's soft and mellow undertone To a note-like trust in the Father had grown. And that trust, I ween, in our hearts had sway, As on through the woods we wended our way. Meeting and parting fringe life below; We parted--twenty years ago. My aunts turned back, and on went I, Striving my burning tears to dry. Almost a thousand miles away Was the _Alma Mater_ I sought that day. To a voice I turned me on my track, And saw them both come running back. "Is something forgotten?" soon stammered I; And they, without a word in reply, Caught me in their arms, a great baby of twenty, And smothered me with kisses not too plenty. Some joys I had known before that day, And many since have thronged my way; But in all my seeking through forty years, In which rainbow hopes have dried all tears, I have nothing found in the paths of knowledge, Surpassing those kisses I carried to college. * * * * * XII. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. (BORN 1786--DIED 1847.) HEROISM ON THE GREAT DEEP--A MARTYR OF THE POLAR SEA. The life of this great navigator is an epic of the ocean, which will stir the brave heart for many ages to come. One day, toward the close of the last century, a young English lad, named John Franklin, spent a holiday with a companion in a walk of twelve miles from their school at Louth, to look at the sea from the level shores of his native country. It was the first time that the boy had ever gazed on the wonderful expanse, and his heart was strangely stirred. The youngest of four sons, he had been intended for the ministry of the Church of England, but that day's walk fixed His purposes in another direction; and though he knew it not, he was to serve God and man even more nobly by heroic deeds than he could have done by the wisest and most persuasive words. Mr. Franklin was a wise man, and when he found his son bent on a sailor's life, determined to give him a taste-of it, in the hope that this would be enough. John was therefore taken from school at the age of thirteen, and sent in a merchantman to Lisbon. The Bay of Biscay, however, did not cure his enthusiasm; and so we next find John Franklin as a midshipman on board the _Polyphemus_, seventy-four guns. These were stirring times. In 1801 young Franklin's ship led the line in the battle of Copenhagen, and in 1805, having been transferred to the _Bellerophon_, he held charge of the signals at the battle of Trafalgar, bravely standing at his post and coolly attending to his work while the dead and dying fell around him.