THE DEATH-BED.

WE watch'd her breathing thro' the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came sad and dim,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed-she had

Another morn than ours!

Thomas Hood.

LOVE thy mother, little one!
Kiss and clasp her neck again,—
Hereafter she may have a son,

Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain.
Love thy mother, little one!

TO A CHILD EMBRACING HIS MOTHER.

Gaze upon her living eyes,

And mirror back her love for thee,-
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs
To meet them when they cannot see.
Gaze upon her living eyes!

Press her lips the while they glow
With love that they have often told,-
Hereafter thou may'st press in woe,
And kiss them till thine own are cold.
Press her lips the while they glow!

Oh, revere her raven hair!
Altho' it be not silver-grey;

Too early Death, led on by Care,

May snatch save one dear lock away.

Oh, revere her raven hair!

Pray for her at eve and morn,

That Heaven may long the stroke defer,

For thou may'st live the hour forlorn,

When thou wilt ask to die with her.

Pray for her at eve and morn!

Hood.

JACOB'S DREAM.-FROM A PICTURE BY ALLSTON.

THE sun was sinking on the mountain zone
That guards thy vales of beauty, Palestine!
And lovely from the desert rose the moon,
Yet lingering on the horizon's purple line,
Like a pure spirit o'er its earthly shrine.
Up Padan-Aram's height abrupt and bare
A pilgrim toil'd, and oft on day's decline

Look'd pale, then paused for eve's delicious air,
The summit gain'd, he knelt, and breathed his evening prayer.

He spread his cloak and slumber'd-darkness fell
Upon the twilight hills; a sudden sound
Of silver trumpets o'er him seem'd to swell
u;
Clouds heavy with the tempest gather'd round;
Yet was the whirlwind in its caverns bound;
Still deeper roll'd the darkness from on high,
Gigantic volume upon volume wound,
Above, a pillar shooting to the sky,

Below, a mighty sea, that spread incessantly.

Voices are heard-a choir of golden strings,
Low winds, whose breath is loaded with the rose:
Then chariot-wheels-the nearer rush of wings;
Pale lightning round the dark pavilion glows,
It thunders-the resplendent gates unclose;
Far as the eye can glance, on height o'er height,
Rise fiery waving wings, and star-crown'd brows,
Millions on millions, brighter and more bright,
Till all is lost in one supreme, unmingled light.

JACOB'S DREAM. FROM A PICTURE BY ALLSTON.

But, two beside the sleeping Pilgrim stand,
Like Cherub kings, with lifted, mighty plume,
Fix'd, sun-bright eyes, and looks of high command;
They tell the Patriarch of his glorious doom;
Father of countless myriads that shall come,
Sweeping the land like billows of the sea,

Bright as the stars of Heaven from twilight's gloom,
Till He is given whom Angels long to see,
And Israel's splendid line is crown'd with Deity.

George Croly.

THE LAST JOURNEY.

Michaud, in his description of an Egyptian funeral procession which he met on its way to the cemetery of Rosetta, says: "The procession which we saw pass stopped before certain houses, and sometimes receded a few steps. I was told that the dead stopped thus before the doors of their friends to bid them a last farewell, and before those of their enemies, to effect a reconciliation before they parted for ever."

SLOWLY, with measured tread,

Onward we bear the dead

To his long home.

Short grows the homeward road,

On with your mortal load.

Oh, Grave! we come.

Yet, yet-ah hasten not

Past each familiar spot

Where he hath been:

Where late he walked in glee,

There henceforth to be

Never more seen.