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THE COTTAGE GIRL.

MRS. HEMANS.

A CHILD beside a hamlet's fount at play,
Her fair face laughing at the sunny day;
A gush of waters tremulously bright,
Kindling the air to gladness with their light;
And a soft gloom beyond, of summer trees,
Darkening the turf; and shadowed o'er by these,
A low, dim, woodland cottage-this was all!
What had the scene for memory to recall,
With a fond look of love?—what secret spell
With the heart's pictures made its image dwell?
What but the spirit of the joyous child,
That freshly forth o'er stream and verdure smiled,
Casting upon the common things of earth

A brightness, born and gone with infant mirth!

THE DYING INFANT.

BY N. MICHELL, ESQ.

DAY lit the woody mountains; in the dell
Were heard the shepherd's song, and wether's bell;
The kid in circles gambolled on the lea,

And dew, like beauty's tears, empearled each tree;
The lark as winged with rapture, sprang on high,
And sang amidst the roses of the sky:

Yes, all without was brightness, and a voice
From wide creation seemed to cry "Rejoice!"
A different scene the silent room displayed,
Where wan disease on infant beauty preyed;
The lamp pale-flickering, and the curtain drawn,
To hide from sleepless eyes the unwelcome dawn,
The food untasted, and the murmur low
From suffering meekness, spoke a tale of woe.
Oh! all night long the mother watched her child,
And now she wept, and now she talked and smiled,
And smoothed the couch, and sang a soothing lay,
And kissed from that pale brow the dews away;
Her babe e'en of her being seemed a part,
Fount of her hopes and sunshine of her heart.

From western hills, as fades light's farewell streak,
The last sweet hue forsook its lovely cheek;
Death gradual glazed its eyes' cerulean ray,

And on her breast it breathed its life away.

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I SAW an infant-health and joy and light

Bloomed on its cheek, and sparkled in its eye;
And its fond mother stood delighted by
To see its morn of being dawn so bright.
Again I saw it, when the withering blight
Of pale disease had fallen, moaning lie

On that sad mother's breast-stern death was

nigh,

And life's young wings were fluttering for their flight.

Last I beheld it stretched upon the bier, Like a fair flower untimely snatched away, Calm and unconscious of its mother's tear, Which on its placid cheek unheeded lay— But on its lip the unearthly smile express'd, "Oh! happy child, untried, and early bless'd!" New Monthly Magazine.

TO H. C., SIX YEARS OLD.

WORDSWORTH.

O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou faëry voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;

O blessed vision! happy child!

That art so exquisitely mild,

I think of thee with many fears,

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite,

Or lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dewdrop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife,
Slips in a moment out of life.

1802.

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