HOLY THURSDAY. Is this a holy thing to see, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with a cold usurious hand? Is that trembling cry a song? And their sun does never shine, And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are fill'd with thorns: It is eternal winter there. For where'er the sun does shine, Nor poverty the mind appal. THE LITTLE GIRL LOST. IN futurity, I prophetic see, That the earth from sleep (Grave the sentence deep) Shall arise, and seek In the southern clime, Where the summer's prime Never fades away, Lovely Lyca lay. Seven summers old She had wandered long, 'Sweet sleep, come to me 'Lost in desert wild If her heart does ache, 'Frowning, frowning night, O'er this desert bright Let thy moon arise, While I close my eyes.' Sleeping Lyca lay While the beasts of prey, Come from caverns deep, The kingly lion stood Leopards, tigers, play And her breast did lick, While the lioness Loos'd her slender dress, And naked they conveyed To caves the sleeping maid. THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND. ALL the night in woe Lyca's parents go Over valleys deep, While the desarts weep. Tired and woe-begone, Seven nights they sleep Among shadows deep, And dream they see their child Starved in desart wild. Pale thro' pathless ways Rising from unrest, The trembling woman prest In his arms he bore Her, arm'd with sorrows sore; Till before their way A couching lion lay. Turning back was vain, |