图书图片
PDF
ePub

The Safety of the Enfant 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;

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! 't is 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.

The Spirit's Song of Consolation.*

DEAR parents, grieve no more for me;
My parents, grieve no more;
Believe that I am happier far

Than even with you before.
I've left a world where woe and sin
Swell onwards as a river,

And gained a world where I shall rest
In peace and joy for ever.

Our Father bade me come to him,
He gently bade me come;
And he has made his heavenly house
My dwelling-place and home.
On that best day of all the seven
Which saw the Saviour rise,

I heard the voice you could not hear,
Which called me to the skies.

I saw, too, what you could not see—
Two beauteous angels stand;
They smiling stood, and looked at me,
And beckoned with their hand;
They said they were my sisters dear,
And they were sent to bear

* Supposed to be addressed by the departed spirit of a boy to his parents, who had lost two other children before him.

My spirit to their blessed abode,

To live for ever there.

Then think not of the mournful time
When I resigned my breath,
Nor of the place where I was laid,
The gloomy house of death;
But think of that high world, where I
No more shall suffer pain,
And of the time when all of us

In heaven shall meet again.

F. W. P. GREENWOOD.

Epitaph on a Child.

SLEEP on, my babe! thy little bed
Is cold, indeed, and narrow;
Yet calmly there shall rest thy head,
And neither mortal pain nor dread
Shall e'er thy feelings harrow!

Thou may'st no more return to me;
But there's a time, my dearest,
When I shall lay me down by thee,
And when of all, my babe shall be,
That sleep around, the nearest!

And sound our sleep shall be, my child,
Were earth's foundations shaken;

Till He, the pure, the undefiled,

Who once, like thee, an infant smiled,
The dead to life awaken!

Then if to Him, with faith sincere,
My babe at death was given,
The kindred tie that bound us here,

Though rent apart with many a tear,

Shall be renewed in heaven.

R. HUIE.

« 上一页继续 »