But no; that look is not the last : We yet may meet where seraphs dwell, Where love no more deplores the past, Nor breathes that withering word-Farewell. W. O. B. PEABODY. The Early Lost. WHEN the soft airs and quickening showers The bloom is brighter than the day, When, mid our hopes that waken fears, Around us spring, and bud, and bloom, An angel from the blest above Comes down among them at their play, And takes the one that most we love, And bears it silently away: Bereft, we feel the spirit's strife; But while the inmost soul is riven, Our dear and beauteous bud of life Receives immortal bloom in heaven. W. D. GALLAGHER. The Reaper and the Flowers. THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, "Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he, He gazed on the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves: It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves. "My Lord hath need of these flowerets gay," Where he was once a child. “They all shall bloom in fields of light, And saints upon their garments white And the mother gave, with tears and pain, But she knew she should find them all again Oh! not in cruelty, not in wrath "Twas an angel visited the green earth, LONGFELLOW. The Sculptured Children on Chantrey's Monument at Litchfield. FAIR images of sleep! Hallowed, and soft, and deep; 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! 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 fountain wrung! While Hope hath blights to bear, While Love breathes mortal air, While roses perish ere to glory sprung. Yet, from a voiceless home, If some sad mother come To bend and linger o'er your lonely rest, |