'Tis good to be unclothed, and sleep in peace. Friend-Friend!-I would not lose thee!

Thou

hast been

The sharer in my sympathies,-the soul
That prompted me to good,—the hand that shed
Dew on my budding virtues. In the scenes
Where we have dwelt or wandered-I am now
But a divided being. None are left
To love as thou hast loved.

-But yet, to share A few more welcomes from thy soft, blue eye, A few more pressures of thy snowy hand And ruby lip, I would not bind thee here To all that power and plenitude of ill Which we inherit.-Hence, thou selfish grief!Thy root is in the earth, and all thy fruits Bitter and baneful. Holy joy should spring When our co-heirs of immortality Assume their glorious portion. Go, beloved! First, for thou wert most worthy.-I will strive As best such frail one may,-to follow thee.

ANONYMOUS.

THE FAREWELL TO THE DEAD.
No bitter tears for thee to shed,
Blossom of being! seen and gone!
With flowers alone we strew thy bed,
O blest departed one!
Whose all of life, a rosy ray,
Blush'd into dawn, and pass'd away.

Yes! thou art fled, ere guilt had power

To stain thy cherub soul and form,
Closed is the soft ephemeral flower
That never felt a storm!

The sunbeam's smile, the zephyr's breath, All that it knew from birth to death.

Thou wert so like a form of light,
That heaven benignly call'd thee hence,
Ere yet the world could breathe one blight
O'er thy sweet innocence:
And thou, that brighter home to bless,
Art pass'd, with all thy loveliness!

Oh! hadst thou still on earth remain'd,
Vision of beauty! fair, as brief!
How soon thy brightness had been stain'd
With passion or with grief!
Now not a sullying breath can rise,
To dim thy glory in the skies.

We rear no marble o'er thy tomb,
No sculptured image there shall mourn;
Ah! fitter far the vernal bloom

Such dwelling to adorn.

Fragrance, and flowers, and dews, must be The only emblems meet for thee.

Thy grave shall be a blessed shrine,
Adorn'd with Nature's brightest wreath,
Each glowing season shall combine
Its incense there to breathe;
And oft, upon the midnight air,
Shall viewless harps be murmuring there.

And oh! sometimes in visions blest,
Sweet spirit! visit our repose,
And bear from thine own world of rest,
Some balm for human woes!
What form more lovely could be given
Than thine, to messenger of Heaven?
MRS. HEMANS.

TO A FRIEND ON THE LOSS OF HIS CHILD.

Nor every bud that grows

Shall bloom into a flower;
Not every hope that glows
Shall have its prospering hour.
A blight the bud may sever,
The hope be quench'd for ever.

Yet, like the bending bough

From some dead weight released,
The spirits bound, we know not how,

When woe's first press hath ceased;
But this may ne'er be spoken
Of heart or bough that's broken.

There is a pulse in man

That will not throb to grief;
Let woe do all it can,

That pulse will bring relief;
We feel, though self-accusing,
That pulse its balm diffusing.

Since human hopes are vain,

And joy remaineth not,
"T is well that human pain,

When dealt, is thus forgot.
The smile shall leave no traces;
The tear itself effaces.

Then, if apart from all,
Thou still indulge the tear
Too early doom'd to fall

Warm on thine infant's bier,
War not with nature's sorrow,
For peace will come to-morrow.

Or should reviving peace

E'en now be kindly given,
Oh! suffer woe to cease,

And thank indulgent Heaven,
That breathes the breath of healing
On wounds of deepest feeling.

THE SEPULCHRE.

ANONYMOUS.

"But how to think of what the living know not, And the dead cannot, or else may not tell! What art thou? oh! thou great mysterious power."

Hughes.

THERE Manhood lies! Lift up the pall.
How like the tree struck down to earth
In its green pride, the mighty fall,

Whom life hath flatter'd with its worth!
Life is a voyage to our graves;
Its promises, like smiling waves,
Invite us onward o'er a sea,
Where all is hidden treachery.

What statued beauty slumbers there!
But mark those flowers, pale as the brow
Which they have wreath'd; if Death could spare
A victim, he had pitied now.

To-day she hoped to be a bride-
To-day, 't was told, her lover died!
Here death has revell'd in his power,
The riot of life's fairest hour!

Look on that little cherub's face,

Whose budding smile is fix'd by death: How short indeed has been its race!

A cloud sail'd by the sun, a breath
Did gently creep across a bed
Of flowers-its spirit then had fled.
A morning star, a moment bright,
Then melting into heaven's own light.

Behold that picture of decay,

Where nature, wearied, sank to rest! Full fourscore years have pass'd away,

Yet did he, like a lingering guest, Go from life's banquet with a sigh, That he, alas! so soon should die. Our youth has not desires so vain, As creep into an age of pain.

But there how mournfully serene,

That childless widow'd mother's look!
To her the world a waste has been,
One whom it pitied, yet forsook.
Calm as the moon's light, which no storm
Raging beneath it can deform,
Did her afflicted spirit shine,
Above her earthly woes divine.

Thus death deals with mortality,

Like flowers, some gather'd in their prime, Others, when scarcely said to be,

Just number'd with the things of time: