O the child in its hours of health and bloom, that is dear as thou wert then, Grows far more prized-more fondly loved-in sickness and in pain; And thus 't was thine to prove, dear babe, when every hope was lost, Ten times more precious to my soul-for all that thou hadst cost! Cradled in thy fair mother's arms, we watched thee day by day, It came at length;-o'er thy bright blue eye the film was gathering fast,― And an awful shade passed o'er thy brow, the deepest and the last; In thicker gushes strove thy breath,- -we raised thy drooping head; A moment more—the final pang—and thou wert of the dead! Thy gentle mother turned away to hide her face from me, thee; She would have chid me that I mourned a doom so blest as thine, Had not her own deep grief burst forth in tears as wild as mine! We laid thee down in sinless rest, and from thine infant brow Culled one soft lock of radiant hair-our only solace now,— Then placed around thy beauteous corse, flowers—not more fair and sweet Twin rose-buds in thy little hands, and jasmine at thy feet. Though other offspring still be ours, as fair perchance as thou, The first! How many a memory bright that one sweet word can bring, Of hopes that blossomed, drooped, and died, in life's delightful spring ; Of fervid feelings passed away-those early seeds of bliss, My sweet one, my sweet one, my fairest and my first! When I think of what thou might'st have been, my heart is like to burst; But gleams of gladness through my gloom their soothing radiance dart, And my sighs are hushed, my tears are dried, when I turn to what thou art! Pure as the snow-flake ere it falls and takes the stain of earth, THINK OF ME. THINK of me, and I'll tell thee when The moment of that thought shall be; When the blue arch of heaven is bright, The beauty of its placid light Will seem the emblem of our love. When clouds are gathering on its way, Will seem the emblem of our fate. L. E. L. THE FEMALE EXILE. BY MISS. BANNERMAN. YE hills of my country, soft-fading in blue, That mingles its tide with the blood of the brave, Ye scenes of remembrance that sorrow beguiled, Ye shall bloom to the morn, though ye bloom not for me; But never to me shall the summer renew The bowers where the days of my happiness flew ; To me ye are lost!-but your summits of green As I cleave the dark waves of your rock-rugged shore, I ask of the hovering gale if it come From the oak-towering woods on the mountains of home. BY DELTA. Ir is a desolate eve; Dim, cheerless is the scene my path around;- With vigorous talons clenched, and bright eye shut, As if, though stilled by death, thy heart were unsubdued. How cam'st thou to thy death? Did lapsing years o'ercome, and leave thee weak,— 'Mid rack and floating cloud Did scythe-winged lightning flash athwart thy brain, And drive thee, from thine elevation proud, Down whirling lifeless to the dim-seen plain?— I know not-may not guess; but here, alone, Lifeless thou liest, outstretched beside the desert stone. A proud life hath been thine! High on the herbless rock thou 'wok'st to birth, Warm round thy heart, when first thy wings essayed, And, far receded down, the dim material world! Το How fast-how far-how long Thine had it been from rack-veiled eyrie high swoop, and still the wood-lark's lyric song, The leveret's gambols, and the lambkin's cry? The terror-stricken dove Cowered down amid the oak-wood's central shade; When downward glens were dark, And o'er moist earth glowed morning's rosy star, And, oh! how grand to soar Beneath the full moon, on strong pinion driven; Dead king-bird of the waste! And is thy curbless span of freedom o'er? No more shall thine ascending form be traced? While rising o'er the stream-girt vales, thy form, Betwixt thee and dim earth the zig-zag lightnings flee! A child of freedom thou!— Thy birthright the tall cliff and sky beyond: The slave and freeman must alike obey: Pride reels; and Power, that kept a world in awe, The dreadful summons hears ;-and where are they?— Vanished like night-dreams from the sleeper's mind, Dusk 'mid dissolving day, or thunder on the wind! Literary Souvenir. |