He sang of the Sun of Life—His quest In our death-deeps dark and chilly; Of love that quickens to life the dead, As the sun rays seek in the river-bed The germ of the water lily. He sang of Faith—of the eye that seeks With a sightless aspiration The source of Love and the fount of Light, Till far in the folds of the utmost night, Storm-swept with fierce temptation, A light breaks through like a faint white star, That grows and grows like the dawning, Till, veiled in vapors, it hangs above The wakened soul as the face of Love, And Life has begun its morning. He sang of Life in the spring o’ day, Of patience, and truth, and duty,— The narrow ways to the full release, When, lapped in light and a dream of peace, It bursts as a flower to beauty. He sang—and his words fell thick and fast— Of the resurrection glory; Of good from evil, of life from death, And then, with hesitant, bated breath, The God-man’s marvelous story. Then silence fell on the king and court, And out through the open portal The poet passed with a solemn stride Into the midnight spaces wide, Or into the life immortal. My Lady Lily, you will not wake, Wrapped in your dreams Elysian, But this is the mystic tale you hold, Deep in your tremulous heart of gold; And this was the Poet’s vision. THE HOMELIKE HOUSE. BY SUSAN HAYES WARD. CHAPTER II.—THE FAMILY PARLOR. From the gay world we’ll oft retire To our own family and fire, Where love our hours employs; No noisy neighbor enters here No intermeddling stranger near, To spoil our heartfelt joys. —_N. Cotton._ The room which above all others should be furnished with the most loving thought and lavish expense is the household parlor, or family sitting room. Here the father reads his evening paper, the mother busies herself with her ready needle, the children “with books, or work or healthful play.” This should be to eye and body preëminently a restful room, commodious, cheerful. If the reception room for visitors needs the cheer of firelight, how much more the _living room_ of the household. Whittier’s description of the homely comfort of an old New England farm house remains unexcelled in the literature of house furnishing: