Written for little Etta Ayres.

' Come, Nellie !' I cried, on a clear April day,
When the sunbeams kept kissing the shadows away,
' The rainbow has lit on the hill, and, you know,
We might find heaps of gold at the end of the bow.'

We were young, foolish children, sweet Nellie and I,
And we thought that the hill-top was close to the sky;
Believed, too, because we were told it was so,
We should find 'lots' of gold at the end of the bow.

So onward we trudged, over meadows of green,
Whose clover-blooms brightened their emerald sheen;
Then down from the hill to the valley below,
And gazed all around for the end of the bow.

' Not here !' I said, sadly; but Nellie replied,
' It is hid in yon grass by the waterfall's side;
Run fast ! if you move o'er the pebbles so slow,
I'm sure I'll be first at the end of the bow.'

We found not the treasures we searched for till night,
But Nellie, the sweet, fragile blossom, was right;
From this valley of shades she was first called to go
To the clime where is resting the end of the bow.

Where rainbows of glory eternally play,
Our Nellie is singing with seraphs to-day;
And her beautiful pinions are folded, I know,
In the fullness of joy at the end of the bow.