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I little thought such wish to prove,
When cradled on my breast,
With all a mother's cautious love
His sleeping lids I pressed:
Alas, alas! his dying head

Was pillowed on a colder bed

Farewell, farewell, my dearest!

They told me victory's laurels wreath'd
His youthful temples round-

That "victory!" from his lips was breathed The last exulting sound

Cold comfort to a mother's ear,

That longed his living voice to hear-
Farewell, farewell, my dearest !

E'en so thy gallant father died,
When thou, poor orphan child!
A helpless prattler at my side,
My widowed grief beguiled;
But now bereaved of all in thee,

What earthly voice shall comfort me?-
Farewell, farewell, my dearest !

C. BOWLES.

THE SCULPTURED CHILDREN.

ON CHANTREY'S MONUMENT AT LICHFIELD.

FAIR images of sleep!

Hallowed, and soft, and deep;

On whose calm lids the dreamy quiet lies,

Like moonlight on shut bells

of flowers in mossy dells,

Filled with the hush of night and summer skies;

How many hearts have felt

Your silent beauty melt

Their strength to gushing tenderness away!

How many sudden tears,

From depths of buried years

All freshly bursting, have confessed your sway;

How many eyes will shed,

Still o'er your marble bed,

Such drops, from memory's troubled fountains

wrung!

While hope hath blights to bear,

While love breathes mortal air,

While roses perish, heirs to glory sprung.

Yet from a voiceless home

If some sad mother come

To bend and linger o'er your lovely rest;
As o'er the cheek's warm glow,

And the soft breathings low

Of babes that grew and faded on her breast;

If then the dove-like tone

Of those faint murmurs gone,

O'er her sick sense too piercingly return;

If for the soft bright hair,

And brow and bosom fair,

And life, now dust, her soul too deeply yearn;

O gentle forms entwined

Like tendrils which the wind

May wave, so clasped, but never can unlink;
Send from your calm profound

A still small voice, a sound

Of hope, forbidding that lone heart to sink.

By all the pure meek mind
In your pale beauty shrined,

By childhood's love-too bright a bloom to die!

O'er her worn spirit shed,

O fairest, holiest dead!

The faith, trust, light of immortality.

HEMANS.

THE BLIND GIRL, TO HER MOTHER.

MOTHER, they say the stars are bright,
And the broad heavens are blue,
I dream of them by day and night,
And think them all like you.
I cannot touch the distant skies,
The stars ne'er speak to me-
Xet their sweet images arise,

And blend with thoughts of thee.
I know not why, but oft I dream,
Of the far land of bliss;

And when I hear thy voice, 1 deem
That heaven is like to this.

When my sad heart to thine is pressed,
My follies all forgiven

Sweet pleasure warms my beating breast,

And this I say is Herven.

O mother, will the God above,

Forgive my faults like thee?

Will he bestow such care and love

On a blind thing like me?

Dear mother leave me not alone!

Go with me when I die

Lead thy blind daughter to the throne,
And stay in yonder sky.

G. SEDLY.

LOVE'S LAST BEQUEST.

In the fresh and sunny spring-time

When all young things are gay,

When the flowers are bursting through the mould And the leaf-buds on the spray,

Alone, in bitterness of soul

Beside the widow'd bed,

One, with a strong man's agony,
Held commune with the dead.

But a tender orphan bud had sprung
To heal that mourner's smart,
And break the icy lonesomeness-

The winter of the heart.

When Nature wakes from winter's sleep
And stirs each comely limb,

And springs, fresh robed, all loveliness,
As from a pleasant dream,

Methinks then is the hour of peace,
A time by hope beguiled,

That seemeth in its gladsomeness

Pure as a weaned child;

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