Yes, mother of the dying one,
The beautiful must go!
The pallid cheek and fading eye,
And trembling lip of snow,
Are signets from the hand of death,
When unseen angels come
To bear the young and beautiful
To their own happy home.

That soft white hand within thy own,
May never more entwine

Their arms around the mother's neck,
Like tendrils of the vine;
Those still, cold fingers never move
Along thy forehead fair,
Shall dally with the raven curls
That cluster thickly there.

The flashes of its speaking eye,
The music of its mirth,
Shall never more make glad the hearts
Around the parent's hearth;
Then look thy last, fond mother,
For the earth shall be above,
And curtain up that sleeping one-
The first-born of thy love!

But let thy burning thoughts go forth,
And pray that thou may'st meet
That sinless one, where worlds shall bow
Before the judgment seat;
And pray, that when the wing of death
Is shadow'd on thy brow,
Thy soul may be beside the one
That sleepeth near thee now.

"I THOUGHT IT SLEPT."

I SAW the infant cherub-soft it lay,
As it was wont, within its cradle, now
Deck'd with sweet-smelling flowers.
strange

A sight so

Fill'd my young breast with wonder, and I gazed Upon the babe the more. I thought it sleptAnd yet its little bosom did not move!

I bent me down to look into its eyes,

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But they were closed; then softly clasp'd its hand; But mine it would not clasp. What should I do? "Wake, brother, wake!" I then, impatient, cried; 'Open thine eyes, and look on me again!" He would not hear my voice. All pale beside My weeping mother sat, "and gazed and look'd Unutterable things." "Will he not wake?"

I

eager ask'd. She answer'd but with tears. Her eyes on me, at length, with piteous look, Were cast-now on the babe once more were fix'd, And now on me: then, with convulsive sigh And throbbing heart, she clasp'd me in her arms, And, in a tone of anguish, faintly said

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My dearest boy, thy brother does not sleep; Alas! he's dead; he never will awake." He's dead! I knew not what it meant, but more To know I sought not. For the words so sad"He never will awake"-sunk in my soul: I felt a pang unknown before; and tears That angels might have shed, my heart dissolved. HENRY PICKERING,

THE DYING CHILD.

Tis dying! life is yielding place
To that mysterious charm,
Which spreads upon the troubled face
A fix'd, unchanging calm,
That deepens as the parting breath
Is gently sinking into death,

A thoughtful beauty rests the while
Upon its snowy brow;

But those pale lips could never smile
More radiantly than now;
And sure some heavenly dreams begin
To dawn upon the soul within!

O that those mildly conscious lips
Were parted to reply-

To tell how death's severe eclipse
Is passing from thine eye;

For living eye can never see

The change that death hath wrought in thee.

Perhaps thy sight is wandering far
Throughout the kindled sky,
In tracing every infant star

Amid the flames on high;-
Souls of the just, whose path is bent
Around the glorious firmament.

Perhaps thine eye is gazing down
Upon the earth below,

Rejoicing to have gain'd thy crown,
And hurried from its woe

To dwell beneath the throne of Him,
Before whose glory heaven is dim.

Thy life! how cold it might have been,
If days had grown to years!

How dark, how deeply stain'd with sin,
With weariness and tears!
How happy thus to sink to rest,
So early number'd with the blest!

'Tis well, then, that the smile should lie
Upon thy marble cheek:

It tells to our inquiring eye
What words could never speak-
A revelation sweetly given
Of all that man can learn of heaven.

ANONYMOUS.

THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

My sweet one, my sweet one, the tears were in

my eyes

When first I clasp'd thee to my heart, and heard thy feeble cries ;

For I thought of all that I had borne, as I bent me down to kiss

Thy cherry lips and sunny brow, my first-born bud of bliss!

I turn'd to many a wither'd hope,-to years of grief and pain

And the cruel wrongs of a bitter world flash'd o'er my boding brain ;—

I thought of friends grown worse than cold, of persecuting foes,

And I ask'd of Heaven, if ills like these must mar thy youth's repose?

I gazed upon thy quiet face-half blinded by my

tears

Till gleams of bliss, unfelt before, came brightening on my fears,

Sweet rays of hope that fairer shone, 'mid the clouds of gloom that bound them,

As stars dart down their loveliest light when midnight skies are round them.

My sweet one, my sweet one, thy life's brief hour is o'er,

And a father's anxious fears for thee can fever me no more;

And for the hopes-the sun-bright hopes—that blossom'd at thy birth

They too have fled, to prove how frail are cherish'd things of earth!

'Tis true that thou wert young, my child, but tho'
brief thy span below,

To me it was a little age of agony and woe;
For, from thy first faint dawn of life thy cheek
began to fade,

And my heart had scarce thy welcome breathed, ere my hopes were wrapt in shade.

Oh the child, in its hours of health and bloom that is dear as thou wert then,

Grows far more prized-more fondly loved in sickness and in pain;

And thus 't was thine to prove, dear babe, when every hope was lost,

Ten times more precious to my soul for all that thou hadst cost!

Cradled in thy fair mother's arms, we watch'd thee day by day,

Pale, like the second bow of Heaven, as gently

waste away;

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