There, my mother, pleasures centre,
Weeping, parting, care or wo
Ne'er our Father's house shall enter;
Morn advances - let me go.

As through this calm, peaceful dawning, Silent glides my parting breath,

To an everlasting morning,

Gently close my eyes in death.

Blessings endless, richest blessings,
Pour their streams upon thy heart!
Though no language yet possessing,
Breathes my spirit ere we part.

Yet to leave thee sorrowing rends me,
Though again his voice I hear;
Rise! may every grace attend thee;
Rise! and seek to meet me there.

THE TRUE CONSOLER.

OH! there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn and ask

Of him to be our friend!

WORDSWORTH.

THE LAMB WITHOUT.

WHENE'ER I close the door at night,
And turn the creaking key about,
A pang renewed assails my heart —
I think my darling is shut out;

Think that, beneath these starry skies
He wanders, with his little feet;
The pines stand hushed in glad surprise,
The garden yields its tribute sweet.

Through every well-known path and nook
I see his angel footsteps glide,

As guileless as the Pascal Lamb
That kept the infant Saviour's side.

His earnest eye, perhaps, can pierce
The gloom in which his parents sit;
He wonders what has changed the house,
And why the cloud hangs over it.

He passes with a pensive smile,

Why do they linger to grow old,

And what the burthen on their hearts?
On him shall sorrow have no hold.

Within the darkened porch I stand—
Scarce knowing why, I linger long;
O, could I call thee back to me,

Bright bird of heaven, with sooth or song!

But no

-the

way worn

wretch shall pause

To bless the shelter of this door; Kinsman and guest shall enter in,

But my lost darling, never more.

Yet, waiting on his gentle ghost,
From sorrow's void, so deep and dull,
Comes a faint breathing of delight,
A presence calm and beautiful.

I have him, not in outstretched arms,
I hold him, not with straining sight,
While in blue depths of quietude

Drops, like a star, my still "Good-night.”

Thus, nightly, do I bow my head

To the unseen, eternal Force; Asking sweet pardon of my child,

For yielding him in death's divorce.

He turned away from childlike plays,
His baby toys he held in scorn;
He loved the forms of thought divine,

Woods, flowers, and fields of waving corn.

And then I knew my little one

Should by no vulgar love be taught;
But by the symbols God has given
To solemnize our common thought;

The mystic angels, three in one,
The circling serpent's faultless round,
And, in far glory dim, the Cross,

Where Love o'erleaps the human bound.

MRS. HOWE.

DEATH OF THE YOUNG.

OH! it is hard to take

The lesson that such deaths will teach,
But let no man reject it,

For it is one that all must learn,

And it is a mighty universal truth,

When death strikes down the innocent and young. For every fragile form from which he lets

The parting spirit free,

A hundred virtues rise,

In shapes of mercy, charity, and love,

To walk the world and bless it.

Of every tear

That sorrowing mortals shed on such green

graves,

Some good is born, some gentler nature comes.

DICKENS.

GOD SHIELD THEE, CHILDLESS MOTHER.

YOUNG mother! what can feeble friendship say, To soothe the anguish of this mournful day? They, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled,

Know how the living sorrow for the dead;
Each tutored voice, that seeks such grief to
cheer,

Strikes cold upon the weeping parent's ear;
I've felt it all, - alas! too well I know

How vain all earthly power to hush thy woe!
God cheer thee, childless mother! 't is not given
For man to ward the blow that falls from heaven.

I've felt it all- as thou art feeling now;

Like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow,
I've sat and watched by dying beauty's bed,
And burning tears of hopeless anguish shed;
I've gazed upon the sweet but pallid face,
And vainly tried some comfort there to trace;
I've listened to the short and struggling breath;
I've seen the cherub eye grow dim in death;
Like thee, I've veiled my head in speechless
gloom,

And laid my first-born in the silent tomb.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.