THE SHUNAMITE.* Ir was a sultry day of summer time. The sun pour'd down upon the ripen'd grain Stood still, and the divided flock were all Of nature had run down, and ceas'd to beat. "Haste thee, my child!" the Syrian mother said, 2 Kings iv. 18-37. Thy father is athirst”—and from the depths She drew refreshing water, and with thoughts Lifted with watchful care, and o'er the hills, And through the light green hollows, where the lambs Childhood is restless ever, and the boy Cheering their labour on, till they forgot Closed as with dizzy pain, and with his hand They bore him to his mother, and he lay Sweet music of his breath, that she had learn'd To love when he was slumbering at her side In his unconscious infancy -"So still! 'Tis a soft sleep! How beautiful he lies, With his fair forehead, and the rosy veins Playing so freshly in his sunny cheek! How could they say that he would die! Oh God! I could not lose him! I have treasured all "Yet so still! How like this breathless slumber is to death! I could believe that in that bosom now There were no pulse-it beats so languidly! I cannot see it stir; but his red lip !— Death would not be so very beautiful! And that half smile-would death have left that there? -And should I not have felt that he would die? And have I not wept over him?-and prayed |