OUR BESSIE.

OUR Bessie was as sweet a girl
As ever happy mother kissed,
And when our Father called her home,
How sadly was she missed!

For, grave or gay, or well or ill,

She had her thousand winning ways,
And mingled youthful innocence
With all her tasks and plays.

How softly beamed her happy smile,

Which played around the sweetest mouth That ever fashioned infant words;

The sunshine of the south, Mellowed and soft, was in her eye,

And brightened through her golden hair; And all that lived and loved, I ween,

Did her affection share.

With reverent voice she breathed her prayer, With gentlest tones she sung her hymn; And when she talked of heaven, our eyes With tears of joy were dim.

Yet in our selfish grief we wept,

When last her lips upon us smiled; O! could we, when our Father called, Detain the happy child?

Our home is poor, and cold our clime,

And misery mingles with our mirth; 'T was meet our Bessie should depart From such a weary earth.

O! she is safe· - no cloud can dim

The brightness of her ransomed soul;
Nor trials vex, nor tempter lure
Her spirit from its goal.

We wrapt her in her snow-white shroud,
And crossed, with sadly tender care,
Her little hands upon her breast,
And smoothed her sunny hair.

We kissed her cheek, and kissed her brow,
And if aright we read the smile
That lingered on the dear one's lips,
It told of heaven the while!

W. H. BURLEIGH.

GRIEF.

GRIEF fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuff's out his vacant garments with his form: Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

SHAKSPEARE

CASA WAPPY.*

AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home,
Our fond, dear boy -

The realms where sorrow dare not come,
Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,

Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our death,
Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,
As closed thine eye;

Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee.
Sighs are but bubbles on the sea

Of our unfathomed agony,

Casa Wappy!

Thou wert a vision of delight

To bless us given; Beauty embodied to our sight,

A type of heaven;

*The self-conferred pet name of an infant son of the poet, snatched away after a very brief illness.

So dear to us thou wert, thou art
Even less thine own self than a part
Of mine and of thy mother's heart,
Casa Wappy!

Thy bright brief day knew no decline,
'T was cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine,
Beloved boy!

This morn beheld thee blithe and gay,
That found thee prostrate in decay,
And ere a third shone, clay was clay,
Casa Wappy!

Gem of our hearth, our household pride,
Earth's undefiled!

Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,
Our dear, sweet child!

Humbly we bow to fate's decree;

Yet had we hoped that time should see

Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,
Casa Wappy!

Do what I may, go where I will,
Thou meet'st my sight;

There dost thou glide before me still,
A form of light!

I feel thy breath upon my cheek—
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak—
Till, oh! my heart is like to break,
Casa Wappy!

Methinks thou smil'st before me now,
With glance of stealth;

The hair thrown back from thy full brow
In buoyant health;

I see thine eyes' deep violet light,
Thy dimpled cheek carnationed bright,
Thy clasping arms so round and white,
Casa Wappy!

The nursery shows thy pictured wall,
Thy bat, thy bow,

Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball:
But where art thou?

A corner holds thine empty chair,
Thy playthings, idly scattered there,
But speak to us of our despair,
Casa Wappy!

Even to the last thy every word

To glad, to grieve

Was sweet as sweetest song of bird

On summer's eve;