1831.

THE DEATH BED

WE watch'd her breathing thro' the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,

So slowly moved about,

As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied-

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad
And chill with early showers,

Her quiet eyelids closed-she had

Another morn than ours.

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Thomas Hood.

RESIGNATION

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair!

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The air is full of farewells to the dying,

And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

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We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funeral tapers

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transi

tion;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,-the child of our affection,But gone unto that school

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Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

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Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives, whom we call dead.

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Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though un

spoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

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And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

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And though at times impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the

ocean,

That cannot be at rest,

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

1849.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

SHE CAME AND WENT

As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;-
I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,

The blue dome's measureless content, So my soul held that moment's heaven;I only know she came and went.

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps
The orchards full of bloom and scent,
So clove her May my wintry sleeps;-
I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,

Through the low doorway of my tent;

The tent is struck, the vision stays;-
I only know she came and went,

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
And life's last oil is nearly spent,
One gush of light these eyes will brim,
Only to think she came and went.

1849.

James Russell Lowell.

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THE FIRST SNOW-FALL

THE snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock

Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,
The stiff rails softened to swan's-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn

Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently,

As did robins the babes in the wood.

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