138 ON MAKING THE GRAVE OF A NEW-BORN CHILD.

But not that from this cup of bitterness
A cherub of the sky has turned away.

One look upon thy face ere thou depart!
My daughter! it is soon to let thee go!

My daughter! with thy birth has gushed a spring
I knew not of- filling my heart with tears,
And turning with strange tenderness to thee
A love-O God! it seems so that must flow
Far as thou fleest, and 'twixt heaven and me,
Henceforward, be a bright and yearning chain
Drawing me after thee! And so, farewell!
'Tis a harsh world, in which affection knows
No place to treasure up its loved and lost
But the foul grave! Thou who so late wast sleeping
Warm in the close fold of a mother's heart,
Scarce from her breast a single pulse receiving
But it was sent thee with some tender thought,
How can I leave thee here! Alas for man!
The herb in its humility may fall,

And waste into the bright and genial air,
While we-by hands that ministered in life
Nothing but love to us are thrust away,
The earth flung in upon our just cold bosoms,
And the warm sunshine trodden out forever!

Yet have I chosen for thy grave, my child,
A bank where I have lain in summer hours,
And thought how little it would seem like death
To sleep amid such loveliness. The brook,
Tripping with laughter down the rocky steps
That led up to thy bed, would still trip on,

Breaking the dead hush of the mourners gone;
The birds are never silent that build here,
Trying to sing down the more vocal waters:
The slope is beautiful with moss and flowers,
And far below, seen under arching leaves,
Glitters the warm sun on the village spire,
Pointing the living after thee. And this
Seems like a comfort; and, replacing now
The flowers that have made room for thee, I go
To whisper the same peace to her who lies
Robbed of her child and lonely. 'Tis the work
Of many a dark hour, and of many a prayer,
To bring the heart back from an infant gone.
Hope must give o'er, and busy fancy blot
The images from all the silent rooms,
And every sight and sound familiar to her
Undo its sweetest link; and so, at last,

The fountain

that, once struck, must flow forever Will hide and waste in silence. When the smile

Steals to her pallid lip again, and spring
Wakens the buds above thee, we will come,
And, standing by thy music-haunted grave,
Look on each other cheerfully, and say,
"A child that we have loved is gone to heaven,
And by this gate of flowers she passed away."

140

TO A MOTHER BEREFT OF A DAUGHTER.

TO A MOTHER BEREFT OF AN INFANT

DAUGHTER.

REV. HERMAN HOOKER.

That reason

GOD does nothing without a reason. may have respect to you; it may have respect to your child; and not unlikely to both. He sees effects in their causes. Your case may have been this: you may have been in danger of loving the world too much, and he removed the cause in time. Her case may have been this she may have been in danger from the growth of a corrupt nature, and he took her in the bud of being that she might grow without imperfection, "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Think of your child, then, not as dead, but as living; not as a flower that is withered, but as one that is transplanted, and, touched by a divine hand, is blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those of earth, though to your eyes these last may have been beautiful, more beautiful than you will hope to see again.

WORDS OF LUTHER ON LOSING A
DAUGHTER.

MICHELET'S LIFE OF LUTHER.

LUTHER, when he lost his daughter Magdalen, who died in 1542, said to his wife, who was bitterly weeping, "Dear Catharine, console thyself; think where our daughter is gone, for sure she has passed happily into peace. The flesh bleeds, doubtless, for such is its nature; but the spirit lives, and goes to the place of its wishes. Children do not dispute; what we tell them, they believe. With them all is simplicity and truth. They die without pain or grief, without struggling, without temptations assailing them, without bodily suffering, just as though they were merely going to sleep." Then, as he looked upon her, he said, "Dear child, thou wilt rise again; thou wilt shine like I am joyful in spirit, but O, how sad in the flesh! 'Tis marvellous I should know she is certainly at rest, that she is well, and yet that I should be so sad." On the same subject he writes thus to Jonas: "You will have heard of the new birth into the kingdom of Christ of my daughter Magdalen. Though my wife and I ought, in reality, to have no other feeling than one of profound gratitude for her happy escape from the power of the flesh, the world, the Turk, and the devil, yet the force of

a star-ay, like the sun.

142

DIRGE FOR A YOUNG GIRL.

natural affection is so great, that we cannot support our loss without constant weeping and bitter sorrow -a thorough death of the heart, so to speak. We have ever before us her features, her words, her gestures, her every action in life, and on her death bed my darling, my all-dutiful, all-obedient daughter! Even the death of Christ-and what are all other deaths in comparison with that?—cannot tear her from my thoughts, as it ought to do. She was, as you well know, all gentleness, amiability, and tenderness."

DIRGE FOR A YOUNG GIRL.

JAMES T. FIELDS.

UNDERNEATH the sod, low lying,
Dark and drear,

Sleepeth one who left, in dying,
Sorrow here.

Yes, they're ever bending o'er her
Eyes that weep;

Forms that to the cold grave bore her
Vigils keep.

When the summer moon is shining

Soft and fair,

Friends she loved in tears are twining
Chaplets there.