* * * * * =SONG.= Tears for the weary, Smiles for the gay: Hearts that are dreary Dream far away. Vows have been broken— Tears have been shed— Love’s gentle token Lies withered and dead. Dead and forsaken! O leave me alone! I would not awaken The memories gone. Then utter no whisper— Breathe not a sigh— Like evening’s last vesper Affection must die. O. J. V. * * * * * =GANGA.= =BY D. WILLIAMS.= Still flows the Ganges the mightiest of Eastern waters! As erst it flowed when rocking the cradle of our common humanity with its green waves—laving the shores whence issued all our race—as like the Heraclean boy it fought and conquered in its tossing cot rolling on the Ganges’ breakers, all hydras which would smother its birth and growth, so do its descendants turn with affection to their natal stream, like the returning Heraclidæ to Greece of old. How rich in scenes of human joy and wo—how replete with the misty _veddahs_—how full of the corpses of India’s children, sacrificed to its beatific current, rolls the ancient river, its banks green with the growth of ages, with tropic vegetation stretching its umbrageous arms like huge _antennæ_ over the waters of many colors, as they borrow their dolphin-hues from the thousand suns dipped in its waves, from the multifold reflections of the hoary Himmalayeh. And still its fertile flow marks no flight of time or change in the religion of its children. Still wanders the Brahmin, continent and secluded, on its banks, and offers his all to the three-fold Divinity. The air whispering its light _susurrus_ amid the purple and scarlet flowers that form the home of the humming-birds, whirring in their sweet-laden journey like the home-coming bees of Hybla—the ripple of the foaming tide as the lily-tops bow to its inspired influence—the song of the mourning mother as she strips her child for the sacrifice, commune with the mighty Bramah, and repeat the tales of Seeva. And the darkness comprehends it. . . . . .