To know I sought not. For the words so sad,
"He never will awake!" sunk in my soul:
I felt a pang unknown before; and tears

That angels might have shed, my heart dissolved.

PICKERING.

"OUR DEAR LITTLE BABY."

Ar a mason's yard I lately saw a headstone with these words,

"OUR DEAR LITTLE BABY."

and the marble upon which affection has cut the sentence is as small and as pure as an infant.

Surely, here is perfection in an epitaph. The age of a dying child is nothing, and need not be recorded; and what is there in a name when the heart yearns for the form! This little stone has no mark for curiosity, and cold history would frown on it; but a parent, any parent entering a graveyard where that baby rests, and that small marble may stand, would carefully avoid treading on the little grave, and yet would stand there conjuring up the once bright eyes of that baby, fixed on a mother's love, and its arms opening for a father's fondness; and then, alas, the dimming of those eyes, and the drooping of those arms; the silence, and what more sad, of a dead child; and the father and mother bereft of all but this cry of nature"Our dear little baby."

A MOTHER'S LAMENT.

57

A MOTHER'S LAMENT.

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-'twas gone-where is it?

Yet did'st thou leave behind thee

A clue for love to find thee.

The eye, the cheek, the lip, the brow,
The hands stretched forth in gladness;

All life, joy, rapture, beauty, now-
Then dashed with infant sadness;
Till brightening 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 and pleasure,

To her quick pulse revealing

Unutterable feeling.

Hushed in a moment on her breast,
Life at the well-spring drinking,
When 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.

My 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 canst forget me.

PROVIDENCE.

Thou-thou-in heaven, and I on earth,
May this one hope delight us,
That thou wilt hail my second birth,

When death shall reunite us;
Where worlds no more can sever
Parent and child for ever.

MONTGOMERY.

59

PROVIDENCE.

Just as a mother, with sweet pious face,
Yearns toward her little children from her seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace—

Takes this upon her knee-this at her feet;
And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences,
She learns their feelings and their various will-
To this a book, to that a word dispenses,

And whether stern or smiling, loves them still; So Providence, for us high infinite,

Makes our necessities his watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,
And even if He denies what seems our right,
Either denies because He'd have us ask,
Or seems but to deny-or in denying, grants.

LEIGH HUNT.

A CHILD'S FANCY.

The idea contained in the following lines was really expressed by a little boy of five years old.

Он, I long to lie, dear mother,

On the cool and fragrant grass,
With nought but the sky above my head,
And the shadowing clouds that pass.

And I want the bright, bright sunshine
All round about my bed;

I will close my eyes, and God will think
Your little boy is dead!

Then Christ will send an angel
To take me up to Him;

He will bear me slow and steadily
Far through the ether dim.

He will gently, gently lay me
Close to the Saviour's side,

And when I'm sure we are in heaven,

My eyes I'll open wide.

And I will look among the angels

That stand about the throne,

Till I find my sister Mary,
For I know she must be one.