OUR ELDEST BORN.

OUR ELDEST BORN.

THOU bright and star-like spirit,
That in my visions wild

I see 'mid heaven's seraphic host,
Oh, canst thou be my child!

My grief is quenched in wonder,
And pride arrests my sighs;
A branch of this unworthy stock
Now blossoms in the skies!

Our hopes of thee were lofty,
But have we cause to grieve?
Oh could our proudest, fondest wish,
A nobler fate conceive?

The little weeper-tearless;

The sinner-snatched from sin;
The babe-to more than manhood grown
Ere childhood did begin.

And I-thy earthly teacher,

Would blush, thy powers to see;

Thou art to me a parent, now,

And I a child to thee.

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Thy brain, so uninstructed

While in this lowly state,

Now threads the mazy track of spheres,
Or reads the book of fate.

Thine eyes, so curbed in vision,

Now

range

the realms of space,

Look down upon the rolling stars,

Look up-in God's own face.

Thy little hand, so helpless

That scarce its toys could hold, Now clasps its mate in holy prayer Or strikes a harp of gold.

Thy feeble feet, unsteady,

That tottered as they trod,

With angels walk the heavenly paths
Or stand before their God.

Nor is thy tongue less skilful
Before the throne divine,

'Tis pleading for a mother's weal,

As once she prayed for thine.

What bliss is born of sorrow!

'Tis never sent in vain!

The Heavenly surgeon maims to save,
He gives no useless pain.

A BUTTERFLY AT A CHILD'S GRAVE. 93

Our God, to call us Homeward,

His only Son sent down,

And now, still more to tempt our hearts,

Has taken up our own.

THOMAS WARD.

A BUTTERFLY AT A CHILD'S GRAVE. A BUTTERFLY basked on an infant's grave Where a lily had chanced to grow— Why art thou here with thy gaudy dye, Where she of the bright and sparkling eye Must sleep in the church-yard low?

Then it lightly soared through the sunny air,
And spoke from its shining track:

I was a worm till I won my wings,

And she whom thou mourn'st like a seraph sings, Would'st thou call the blest one back?

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

THE SAFETY OF THE INFANT-DEAD.

They only can be said to possess a child for ever who have lost one in infancy.

OUR beauteous child we laid amidst the silence of the dead,

We heaped the earth, and spread the turf above the cherub-head;

We turned again to sunny life, to other ties as dear,

And the world has thought us comforted, when we have dried the tear.

And time has rolled its onward tide, and in its ample range

Has poured along the happiest paths, vicissitude and change;

The flexile forms of infancy, their earliest leaves have shed,

And the tall stately forest trees are waving in their stead.

We guide not now our children's steps, as we were wont before,

For they have sprung to manhood, they lean on

us no more;

THE SAFETY OF THE INFANT-DEAD.

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We gaze upon the lofty brow, and time and thought have cast

A shade, through which we seek in vain the memory of the past.

And do we mourn the other change, which mocks our memory here!

Ah no! 'tis but the answered wish of many a secret prayer:

Centre of all our fondest hopes, we live but in their fame,

But our love, as to a little child, how can it be the same?

We still have one-and only one, secure in sacred

trust,

It is the lone and lovely one that's sleeping in the dust;

We fold it in our arms again, we see it by our side In the helplessness of innocence, which sin has never tried.

All earthly trust, all mortal years, however light they fly,

But darken on the glowing cheek, and dim the eagle eye

But there, our bright, unwithering flower-our spirit's hoarded store

We keep through every chance and change, the

same for evermore.

ANONYMOUS.