She sits beside the cradle,

But her tears no longer flow,
For she sees a blessed vision,
And forgets all earthly woe;
Saintly eyes look down upon her,

And the voice that hushed the sea
Stills her spirits with the whisper,
"Suffer them to come to Me."
And while her soul is lifted

On the soaring wings of prayer,
Heaven's crystal gates swung inward,
And she sees her baby there!

ROBERT S. CHILTON.

O YE who say,

BEREAVEMENT.

"We have a child in heaven;" Who have felt that desolate isolation sharp Defined in Death's own face; who have stood beside

The silent river, and stretched out pleading hands
For some sweet babe upon the other bank,
That went forth where no human hand might
lead,

And left the shut house with no light, no sound,
No answer, when the mourners wail without!
What we have known, ye know, and only know.

GERALD MASSEY.

THE LAST SMILE.

O, WHY smiled the babe in its dying hour,
When its earth-weary days were done?
It had faded away like a blighted flower,
In the rays of the summer's sun;

Love-full was the look of the innocent child,
So peaceful, so trusting, so sweetly it smiled.

O, why did it smile? Had angels down-come
From the far-off sunny-hued land,

To bear its pure spirit away to its home,
To join a bright seraphim band?

Ah, yes, and they whispered of love and of

peace,

Of joys and of pleasures that never will cease.

D. HARDY, JR.

LITTLE GRAVES.

THERE's many an empty cradle,
There's many a vacant bed,
There's many a lonely bosom,
Whose joy and light are fled;
For thick in every graveyard
The little hillocks lie

-

And every hillock represents
An angel in the sky.

SAFE FOR EVERMORE.

OUR beauteous child we laid amidst the silence of the dead,

We heaped the earth and spread the turf above the cherub head;

We turned again to sunny life, to other ties as dear,

And the world has thought us comforted, when we have dried the tear.

O we have one, and only one, secure in sacred

trust,

It is the lone and lovely one that's sleeping in the dust;

We fold it in our arms again, we see it by our side,

In the helplessness of innocence which sin has never tried.

All earthly trust, all mortal years, however light they fly,

But darken on the glowing cheek, and dim the eagle eye;

But there, our bright, unwithering flower- our spirit's hoarded store

We keep through every chance and change, the same for evermore.

MY CHILD.

I CANNOT make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head

Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim

With tears, I turn to him,

The vision vanishes- he is not there!

I walk my parlor floor,
And through the open door

I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I'm stepping toward the hall,

To give the boy a call;

And then bethink me that- - he is not there!

I tread the crowded street;

A satchell'd lad I meet,

With the same beaming eyes and colored hair;
And, as he's running by,
Follow him with my eye,

Scarcely believing that he is not there!

I know his face is hid

Under the coffin-lid;

Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair: My hand that marble felt;

O'er it in prayer I knelt;

Yet my heart whispers that he is not there!

-

I cannot make him dead!

When passing by the bed,

So long watched over with parental care,
My spirit and my eye

Seek it inquiringly,

Before the thought comes that he is not there!

When at the cool, gray break
Of day, from sleep I wake,

With my first breathing of the morning air
My soul goes up, with joy,

To Him who gave my boy;

Then comes the sad thought that he is not there!

When at the day's calm close,
Before we seek repose,

I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer,
Whate'er I may be saying,

I am, in spirit, praying

For our boy's spirit, though he is not there!

Not there!- Where then is he?

The form I used to see

Was but the raiment that he used to wear:

The

grave, that now doth press

Upon that cast-off dress,

Is but his wardrobe locked; — he is not there!