LOVE STRONG IN DEATH. THE brother of two sisters Burned darkly on his cheek; He spake, or tried to speak. He said, "The quiet moonlight, Beneath the shadowed hill, Seemed dreaming of good angels, While all the woods were still: I felt as if from slumber I never could awake: “A cold, dead weight is on me, — With weariness I ache: Oh, mother, give me something "Some little token give me, My sisters say I'm better But, then, their heads they shake: Oh, mother, give me something To cherish for your sake! "Why can't I see the poplars, Why can't I see the hill, Where, dreaming of good angels, The moonbeams lay so still? Oh, haste, and give me something The little bosom heaves not: The fire hath left his cheek: The one chord - is it broken? The strong chord — could it break? Ah, yes! the loving spirit Hath winged its flight away! The mother and two sisters Look down on lifeless clay. EBENEZER ELLIOTT. WEEP NOT FOR HER. WEEP not for her!-O she was far too fair, Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth! The sinless glory, and the golden air Of Zion, seemed to claim her from her birth! A spirit wandering from its native zone, Which, soon discovering, took her for its own: Weep not for her! Weep not for her!—Her span was like the sky, Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright; Like flowers that know not what it is to die; Like long-link'd shadeless months of Polar light; Like music floating o'er a waveless lake, While Echo answers from the flowery brake: Weep not for her! TO A DEAD CHILD. CHILD of a day, thou knowest not The gushing eyes that read thy lot, And why the wish? The pure and blest O peaceful night! O envied rest! Thou wilt not ever see her weep. THE LOST JEWEL. DR. PAYSON, when engaged in paying pastoral visits to his spiritual flock, happened one day to enter "the house of mourning,” and there he found a disconsolate mother, whose darling child had just been "taken from the evil to come," whom he thus addressed : "Suppose, now, some one was making a beautiful crown for you to wear; and you knew it was for you, and that you was to receive it and wear it as soon as it should be done. Now, if the maker of it were to come, and, in order to make the crown more beautiful and splendid, were to take some of your jewels to put into it, should you be sorrowful and unhappy because they were taken away for a little while, when you knew they were gone to make up your crown?" THE RECEPTION OF TRIALS. THE spirit in which we receive trials either increases or diminishes their bitterness; fortitude and resignation disarm them of their sharpest darts, while anger and vindictiveness only augment their poignancy. THE DYING CHILD TO ITS MOTHER. CEASE here longer to detain me, Fondest mother, drowned in woe ; Now thy kind caresses pain me; Morn advances -- let me go. See yon orient streak appearing, Lately launched, a trembling stranger, On the world's wild, boisterous flood; Pierced with sorrows, tossed with danger, Gladly I return to God. Now my cries shall cease to grieve thee; Now my trembling heart find rest; Kinder arms than thine receive me; Softer pillow than thy breast. Weep not o'er these eyes that languish, |