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THE PLAYGROUND.

The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot,
Playing our games, and on the very spot,
As happy as we once, to kneel and draw
The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw;
To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
Or drive it devious with a dext'rous pat;

The pleasing spectacle at once excites
Such recollections of our own delights,
That, viewing it, we seem almost to obtain
Our innocent sweet simple years again.
This fond attachment to the well-known place,
Whence first we started into life's long race,
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.

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TO EDITH MAY SOUTHEY.

DITH! ten years are numbered, since the day
Which ushers in the cheerful month of May
To us, by thy blest birth, my daughter dear,
Was blest. Thou therefore didst the name partake
Of that sweet month, the sweetest of the year.

A child more welcome, by indulgent Heaven
Never to parents' tears and prayers was given :
For scarcely eight months, at thy happy birth,
Had passed, since of thy sister we were left-
Our first-born, and our only babe, bereft !
Too fair a flower was she for this rude earth.
The features of her beauteous infancy
Have faded from me like a passing cloud,

Or like the glories of an evening sky:

And seldom hath my tongue pronounced her name
Since she was summoned to a happier sphere.
But that dear love, so deeply wounded then,

I in my soul, with silent faith sincere,
Devoutly cherish till we meet again.

I saw thee, first, with trembling thankfulness,
O daughter of my hopes and of my fears!
Pressed on thy thoughtless cheek a troubled kiss
And breathed my blessing over thee with tears.

But memory did not long our bliss alloy;

For gentle nature who had given relief

Weaned with new love the chastened heart from grief;

And the sweet season ministered to joy.

CASABIANCA.

How have I doted on thy infant smiles,

At morning, when thine eyes unclosed on mine;
How as the months in quick succession rolled,

I marked thy human faculties unfold,

And watched the dawning of the light divine;
And with what artifice of playful guiles
Won from thy lips, with still repeated wiles,
Kiss after kiss, a reckoning often told.

Something I ween thou know'st; for thou hast seen
Thy sisters in their turn such fondness prove,
And felt how childhood in its winning years
The attempered soul to tenderness canst move.
This thou canst tell; but not the hopes and fears
With which a parent's heart can overflow--

The thoughts and cares inwoven with that love,

Its nature, and its depth, thou dost not, canst not know.

CASABIANCA.

THE boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck,
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,

As born to rule the storm;

A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child-like form.

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The flames rolled on-he would not go,
Without his father's word;

That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

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CASABIANCA.

"Speak, father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"

And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,

And looked from that lone post of death,
In still, yet brave despair;

And shouted, but once more, aloud,
"My father! must I stay?"

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,

And streamed above the gallant child,

Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound-
The boy-oh! where was he?

Ask of the winds that far around

With fragments strewed the sea

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part-

But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart!

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