ENOCH ARDEN.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

[Enoch Arden having gone to sea, after many years' absence returns to his native place, and, when near his own end, speaks as follows to a friend of his departed infant: -]

AND now there is but one of all my blood,
Who will embrace me in the world-to-be:
This is his hair; she cut it off and gave it,
And I have borne it with me all these years,
And thought to bear it with me to my grave;
But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him,
My babe, in bliss; wherefore, when I am gone,
Take, give her this, for it may comfort her:

It will moreover be a token to her

That I am he.

BERKELEY AND FLORENCE COLERIDGE.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLEridge.

O FRAIL as sweet! twin buds, too rath to bear

The winter's unkind air;

O gifts beyond all price! no sooner given

Than straight required by Heaven;

Match'd jewels, vainly for a moment lent

To deck my brow, or sent

Untainted from the earth, as Christ's, to soar,

And add two spirits more

To that dread band seraphic, that doth lie

Beneath the Almighty's eye;

Glorious the thought, — yet, ah! my babes, ah! still

A father's heart ye fill;

Though cold ye lie in earth, though gentle death
Hath sucked your balmy breath,

And the last kiss which your fair cheeks I gave

Is buried in yon grave.

No tears, no tears, — I wish them not again.

To die for them was vain,

Ere Doubt, or Fear, or Woe, or act of Sin

Had marr'd God's light within.

UNDYING LOVE.

ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D.

THEY sin who tell us Love can die,
With life all other passions fly, -
All others are but vanity.

In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell;
Earthly these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible:

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,

Then hath in heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,

The day of woe, the watchful night,

For all her sorrow, all her tears,

An over-payment of delight?

A FLOWER TRANSPLANTED.

ROBERT BURNS.

(On an only Daughter who died in Autumn 1795.)

Oн, sweet be thy sleep in the land of the grave,

My dear little angel, for ever!

For ever? Oh, no! let not man be a slave,

His hopes from existence to sever.

Though cold be the clay where thou pillow'st thy head,

In the dark silent mansions of sorrow,

The spring shall return to thy low narrow bed,

Like the beam of the day-star to-morrow.

The flower stem shall bloom like thy sweet seraph form,

Ere the spoiler had nipt thee in blossom,

When thou shrunk'st from the scowl of the loud winter

storm,

And nestled thee close to that bosom.

Oh, still I behold thee, all lovely in death,

Reclined in the lap of thy mother,

When the tear trickled bright, when the short stifled breath

Told how dear ye were aye to each other.

My child, thou art gone to the home of thy rest,

Where suffering no longer can harm ye,

Where the songs of the good, where the hymns of the blest,

Through an endless existence shall charm thee.

ROBERT BURNS.

HERE lies a rose, a budding rose,

Blasted before its bloom;

Whose innocence did sweets disclose

Beyond that flower's perfume.

To those who for her loss are griev'd
This consolation's given,

She's from a world of woe receiv'd
And blooms a rose in Heaven.

SONG OF THE CHURCHYARD CHILDREN.
THOMAS AIRd, Dumfries.

Lo! through the churchyard comes a company sweet
Of ghosted infants, who has loosed their feet?
Linked hand in hand, this way they glide along;
But list their softly-modulated song:-

Our good Lord Christ on high

Has let us forth a space,

To see the moonlit place

Where our little bodies lie.

Back He will call us, at His dear command
We'll run again unto the happy land.

O'er each unblemished head

No thunder-cloud unsheaths its terrors red; Mild touching gleams those beauteous fields invest, Won from the kingdoms of perpetual rest.

Stony Enchantment there,

Nor Divination frights;

Nor hoary witch with her blue lights,
And caldron's swarming glare;

There are no muttered spells,

Envy, nor Clamor loud;

Nor Hatred, on whose head for ever dwells
A sullen cloud.

There is no fiend's dissembling,

Nor the deep-furrowed garment of trembling,
But the robes of lucid air,

Oh, all is good and fair!

Unto the Lamb we'll sing,

Who gives us each glad thing:

For Mercy sits with Him upon His throne; For there His gentle keeping is revealed, O'er each young head select a glory and a shield. Wide be His praises known!

And in the end of days,

Our little heads He'll raise

Unto Himself, unto His bosom dear,

Far from the outcast fear

Of them - oh, woe! - who make their beds in fire.
Sons shall we be of the celestial prime,
Breathing the air of Heaven's delicious clime,
Walking in white attire,

With God Himself sublime.

WEEP NOT FOR HER!

"DELTA," IN "BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE," WRITTEN IN 1850.

WEEP not for her! Oh, she was far too fair,
Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth!
The sinless glory, and the golden air

Of Zion, seemed to claim her from her birth,
A spirit wandering from its native zone:
Which soon discov'ring took her for its own:
Weep not for her!

Weep not for her! Her span was like the sky; Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright;

Like flowers that know not what it is to die!

Like long-link'd shadeless months of Polar light; Like music floating o'er a waveless lake,

While Echo answers from the flowery brake,
Weep not for her!