Angel tokens—ever filling Nature’s book with flowing rhyme, Bearing in your silent trilling Records quaint of olden time; Or in strange devices wreathing Wisdom in your swift decay, While your last faint sigh is breathing “Man’s the creature of a day.” Angel tokens—flower fancies— Sea and sky have gone to sleep! Why, when slumber all entrances, Do ye wake and sadly weep? Are ye spirits watching o’er us, And the tears upon your leaves, Do they fall for _cures_ before us— Is’t for _this_ your bosom grieves? Angel tokens—flower fancies— Winter’s breath is on ye now And your perfumed leaves are falling Crisped and shriveled from the bough— Yet when spring, with winter striving, O’er the earth asserts her reign, With her smile your buds reviving, Ye will blossom bright again! Angel tokens—springing lightly Through the glorious summer day, Oh! could we but bloom as brightly, And as brightly pass away— Could _our_ winter, death, victorious O’er the cold and cheerless sod Bear us on in bloom, thus glorious, To the garden of our God! * * * * * EDITOR’S TABLE. PERILS OF THE IMAGINATION. [Illustration] MY DEAR JEREMY,—I place before you the perils of a passage to a Turkish Paradise, because you have shown a passion for turbans, meerschaums and pretty women, and I wish to warn you. The narrow path of Christian theology is still further reduced, you see, in the Mohammedan, so that, sinner as you are, you will find it advisable to stick to the true faith, and to practice it with more diligence. You should not let your imagination run riot—it will be the ruin of you; but take the substantials, with thankfulness, which are yours by possession, and enjoy them to the uttermost. We all—the poorest of us—have enough and to spare of the gifts of Providence to make somebody envious—the veriest slave of money, who boasts of his millions, I’ll warrant me, looks with discomfort upon your superior intellect, or your better appetite, and would part with a good slice of gold, for a taste for a fine poem, or a relish for roast-beef—and I doubt much whether you would bargain them off at his valuation. I would not give a good temper and a cheerful disposition for all the gold that any crabbed old miser may have in his bank vault; nor my troop of true friends for the hungry faces of his poor relations. Would you? Your shilling or mine will buy us more pleasure, with a friend, than he can impart, with a one per cent. discount. This is true—and yet the world does not look upon things thus philosophically. We strain our imaginations to catch at some supposed good, something we _fancy_ would make us blessed, discarding the real good that God has imparted to us.