OH! SAY NOT 'T WERE A KEENER BLOW.

T. H. BAYLY.

Он! say not 't were a keener blow
To lose a child of riper years,
You cannot feel a mother's woe,
You cannot dry a mother's tears:
The girl who rears a sickly plant,
Or cherishes a wounded dove,

Will love them most while most they want
The watchfulness of love!

Time must have changed that fair young brow!
Time might have changed that spotless heart!
Years might have taught deceit--but now
In love's confiding dawn we part!

Ere pain or grief had wrought decay,
My babe is cradled in the tomb;
Like some fair blossom torn away
Before its perfect bloom.

With thoughts of peril and of storm,

We see a bark first touch the wave;

But distant seems the whirlwind's form,
As distant-as an infant's grave!
Though all is calm, that beauteous ship

Must brave the whirlwind's rudest breath;
Though all is calm, that infant's lip
Must meet the kiss of death!

ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER.

BEN JONSON.

HERE lies, to each her parents' ruth,

Mary, the daughter of their youth:
Yet all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due,

It makes the father less to rue.

At six months' end she parted hence

With safety of her innocence;

Whose soul heaven's queen (whose name she bears,)

In comfort of her mother's tears,

Hath placed among her virgin train :

Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
Which cover lightly, gentle earth.

BURIAL OF AN EMIGRANT'S CHILD IN THE FORESTS.

MRS. HEMANS.

SCENE. The banks of a solitary river in an American forest. A tent under pine-trees in the foreground. AGNES sitting before the tent with a child in her arms, apparently sleeping.

AGNES. Surely 't is all a dream—a fever dream! The desolation and the agony

The strange red sunrise-and the gloomy woods,
So terrible with their dark giant boughs,
And the broad lonely river! all a dream!

And my boy's voice will wake me with its clear,
Wild singing tones, as they were wont to come,
Through the wreathed sweetbriar at my lattice

panes,

In happy, happy England! Speak to me !

Speak to thy mother, bright one! she hath watched
All the dread night beside thee, till her brain
Is darkened by swift waves of phantasies,
And her soul faint with longing for thy voice.
Oh! I must wake him with one gentle kiss
On his fair brow!

[Shudderingly.] The strange damp thrilling touch! The marble chill! Now, now it rushes backNow I know all !-dead-dead!-a fearful word! My boy hath left me in the wilderness,

To journey on without the blessed light In his deep loving eyes-he's gone!-he's gone! [Her husband enters.

HUSBAND. Agnes, my Agnes! hast thou looked thy last

On our sweet slumberer's face? the hour is comeThe couch made ready for his last repose.

AGNES. Not yet! thou canst not take him from me yet!

If he but left me for a few short days,

This were too brief a gazing time, to draw

His angel image into my fond heart,

And fix its beauty there. And now-oh! now

Never again the laughter of his eye

Shall send its gladd'ning summer through my soul— Never on earth again. Yet, yet delay!

Thou canst not take him from me.

HUSBAND.

My beloved!

Is it not God hath taken him? the God

That took our first-born, o'er whose early grave Thou didst bow down thy saint-like head, and say, "His will be done!"

AGNES.

Oh! that near household grave,

Under the turf of England, seemed not half,

Not half so much to part me from my child

As these dark woods. It lay beside our home,
And I could watch the sunshine, through all hours,
Loving and clinging to the grassy spot;

And I could dress its greensward with fresh flowers—
Familiar meadow-flowers. O'er thee, my babe,
The primrose will not blossom! Oh! that now,
Together, by thy fair young sister's side,

We lay 'midst England's valleys!

HUSBAND.

Dost thou grieve,

Agnes! that thou hast followed o'er the deep
An exile's fortunes? If it thus can be,
Then, after many a conflict cheerily met,
My spirit sinks at last.

AGNES.

Forgive, forgive!

My Edmund, pardon me! Oh! grief is wild-
Forget its words, quick spray-drops from a fount
Of unknown bitterness! Thou art my home!
My only and my blessed one ! Where'er
Thy warm heart beats in its true nobleness,
There is my country! there my head shall rest,
And throb no more. Oh! still, by thy strong love,
Bear up the feeble reed!

[Kneeling with the child in her arms.

Hear my soul's cry

And thou, my God!

from this dread wilderness

Oh! hear, and pardon me! If I have made

This treasure, sent from thee, too much the ark