POETRY.

A MOTHER'S LAMENT ON THE DEATH OF HER INFANT DAUGHTER.

I LOVED thee, daughter of my heart;
My child, I loved thee dearly:
And though we only met to part,
How sweetly, how severely!
Nor life, nor death, can sever
My soul from thine for ever.

Thy days, my little one, were few-
An angel's morning visit,

That came and vanished with the dew;
"Twas here, 'tis gone! where is it?
Yet didst thou leave behind thee,
A clue for love to find thee.

The eye, the lip, the cheek, the brow,
The hands stretched forth in gladness,
All life, joy, rapture, beauty now,
Then dashed with infant sadness:
Till, bright'ning by transition,
Returned the fairy vision.

Where are they now?-those smiles, those tears,
Thy mother's darling treasure;

She sees them still, and still she hears
Thy tones of pain or pleasure,

To her quick pulse revealing
Unutterable feeling.

Hushed in a moment on her breast,
Life at the wellspring drinking;

Then cradled in her lap to rest,

In rosy slumber sinking.

Thy dreams-no thought can guess them,

And mine-no tongue express them.

For then this waking eye could see,
In many a vain vagary,

The things that never were to be,
Imaginations airy:

Fond hopes that mothers cherish,
Like still-born babes to perish.

Mine perished on thy early bier;
No-changed to forms more glorious,

They flourish in a higher sphere,

O'er time and death victorious;

Yet would these arms have chained thee,
And long from heaven detained thee.

child! my last, my youngest love,
The crown of every other;

Though thou art born in heaven above,
I am thine only mother;

Nor will affection let me

Believe thou can'st forget me.

Then-thou in heaven and I on earth-
May this one hope delight us,
That thou wilt hail my second birth,
When death shall re-unite us,
Where worlds no more can sever
Parent and child for ever.

CHILDREN IN HEAVEN.

YES, children are there, a bright happy band,
With crowns on their brow, and palms in their hand;
Their bloom withers not, no sorrow they know,
Where rivers of bliss unceasingly flow;

There happy they live: to music untold

They strike, ever strike, their sweet harps of gold;
And constantly dwell 'neath the smile of their God;

A mansion each has, an eternal abode.

Hark! "Parents," they call, "weep not that we 're gone,
Nor mourn for our loss, though the dear cherished one,
The hope of your age, has left a sad home

And disconsolate friends. Come, mothers, oh, come;
Forget us not, fathers, but, linked to the sky

By the darling you loved, with your treasure on high,
Temptation repel, a meeting desire,

Where parting is o'er: to heaven aspire."

Hark, teachers, they call. "Your object is blest:
Despair not-press forward to greater success;
The fruits of your labour in heaven appear,

And flowers for your garland are now blooming there.
Transplanted from earth, in far richer soil

They flourish; then cease not your soul-loving toil.
Let hope still inspire, and labour in faith,
For 'He that believeth, the blessing he hath.'

Hark, scholars, they call. "Your parents obey,
Your teachers respect; and waste not in play
The moments so precious, but strive to employ
The time for your good; each hour and each day
With diligence use, then at last you will soar
To the regions where sorrow and troubles are o'er."
There teachers, and parents, and children shall meet,
And cast their bright crowns at Jesus's feet.

A NEWARK TEACHER.

OUR YOUTH'S DEPARTMENT.

THE ANTEATERS.

SOME time ago a pair of remarkable creatures, called anteaters, were brought to this country, and placed in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, London. We have not much time to spare for sight-seeing, but we resolved to take the first opportunity of seeing these animals, that we might be prepared to give our young friends a description of them. On Monday, April 3, this opportunity occurred. We saw these curious-looking quadrupeds, and were greatly interested. Their name, anteater, indicates their natural food. In their native country they live on ants; but as those insects cannot be sufficiently provided for them in England, they are fed, as the keeper informed us, with milk and eggs, and this substi tute seems to serve them very well, for they appear to be in excellent condition.

One kind of anteaters are natives of the warmer regions of America. Their head is long and slender, terminating in s small mouth without teeth, from which the tongue is protruded to an extraordinary length, nearly two feet, for the purpose of collecting its food, which consists of ants and small insects, and honey. When he demolishes their dwellings, he thrusts this extraordinary member, covered with saliva, amid the insects, to which they adhering, he swallows them by thousands, and will repeat the operation almost twice in a second. The great anteater is nearly four feet long, and stands about a foot high; has four toes on the front limbs, armed with strong, sharp claws, suited both for defence and for uprooting the ant-hills; the hinder have five, with short nails; the fur is thick, and the tail is about two and a half feet long, with which he covers himself from the heat or from the rain. There is only one produced at a birth. The anteater fights standing, like the bear, using his fore-paws and will, it is said, sometimes overcome the jaguar, fixing him immovably by his claws within his tremendous embrace. His motions are slow, but he swims well. The flesh is eaten by the Indians.

We have not seen any species but the one just described. We learn from naturalists that there are several other kinds. Goldsmith informs us that there is the Pangolin, which is about three or four feet long; or, taking in the tail, from six

to eight. Like the lizard, it has a small head, a very long nose, a short thick neck, a long body, legs very short, and a tail extremely long, thick at the insertion, and terminating in a point. It has no teeth, but is armed with five toes on each foot, with long white claws. But what it is chiefly distinguished by is its scaly covering, which, in some measure, hides all the proportions of its body. These scales defend the animal on all parts, except the under part of the head and neck, under the shoulders, the breast, the belly, and the inner side of the legs; all which parts are covered with a smooth, soft skin, without hair. Between the shells of this animal, at all the interstices, are seen hairs like bristles, brown at the extremity, and yellow towards the root. The scales of this extraordinary creature are of different sizes and different forms, and stuck upon the body somewhat like the leaves of an artichoke. The largest are found near the tail, which is covered with them like the rest of the body. These are above three inches broad, and about two inches long, thick in the middle and sharp at the edges, and terminated in a roundish point. They are extremely hard, and their substance resembles that of horn. They are convex on the outside, and a little concave on the inner; one edge sticks in the skin, while the other laps over that immediately behind it. Those that cover the tail conform to the shape of that part, being of a dusky brown colour, and so hard, when the animal has acquired its full growth, as to turn a musket-ball.

Thus armed, this animal fears nothing from the efforts of all other creatures, except man. The instant it perceives the approach of an enemy, it rolls itself up like the hedgehog, and presents no part but the cutting edges of its scales to the assailant. Its long tail, which at first view might be thought easily separable, serves still more to increase the animal's security. This is lapped round the rest of the body, and, being defended with shells even more cutting than any other part, the creature continues in perfect security. Its shells are so large, so thick, and so pointed, that they repel every animal of prey; they make a coat of armour that wounds while it resists, and at once protects and threatens. The most cruel, the most famished quadruped of the forest, the tiger, the panther, and the hyena, make vain attempts to force it. They tread upon, they roll it about, but all to no purpose; the pangolin remains safe within, while its invader almost always feels the reward of its rashness. The fox often destroys the hedgehog by pressing it with his weight, and thus obliges it to put forth its nose, which he instantly seizes, and soon after the whole body; but the scales of the