To quiet her baby, whose startled grieved cry
Can only be hushed with the old lullaby--

[Illustration: Words and music:
"Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed."]

Crooning it softly, and crooning it low,
Till again into slumber-land baby will go,
While Grandma still sits in the shadowy room
And smiles as the lullaby floats thro' the gloom.

Now, as she sits thinking and smiling the while,
Behold! Grandpa enters, and answering her smile
(Which even the gloom from his eyes cannot hide),
Draws near the old chair, and sits close at her side.

Their hands steal together; dear hands, which have clung
Thro' weal and thro' woe from the years which were young
Till now, when by age made unsteady and weak,
They yet tell the love which e'en lips may not speak.

"Dear heart!" murmurs Grandpa, "I'm thinking to-night--
As I look at the heavens with starlight so bright--
And note how the moments so surely and fast,
Will bring us the close of the year almost past--

"I'm thinking how like to old age it does seem,
And how o'er life's evening for you and me gleam
The stars of God's mercies, to guide on their way