IX. Thy gentle mother turned away to hide her face from me, And murmured low of Heaven's behests, and bliss attained by 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! X. We laid thee down in thy sinless rest, and from thine infant brow Culled one soft lock of radiant hair-our only solace now, Then placed around thy beauteous corse, flowersnot more fair and sweet Twin rose-buds in thy little hands, and jasmine at thy feet. XI. Though other offspring still be ours, as fair perchance as thou, With all the beauty of thy cheek-the sunshine of the brow, They never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst, They may be lovely and beloved, but not-like thee the first! XII. 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, That germinate in hearts unseared by such a world as this! XIH. My sweet on, my sweet one, my Fairest and my First! When I think of what thou mightst 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! XIV. Pure as the snow-flake ere it falls and takes the stain of earth, With not a taint of mortal life except thy mortal birth, God bade thee early taste the spring for which so many thirst, And bliss-eternal bliss-is thine, my Fairest and my First! FRIENDS. BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, ESQ. FRIEND after friend departs; Who hath not lost a friend? Beyond the flight of time, Beyond the reign of death,There surely is some blessed clime Where life is not a breath; Nor life's affections transient fire, Whose sparks fly upwards and expire ! There is a world above Where parting is unknown; A long eternity of love Formed for the good alone; Thus star by star declines, Till all are past away; As morning high and higher shines To pure and perfect day : Nor sink those stars in empty night, SONNET. BY THE ARCHDEACON WRANGHAM. SOILED, but with no inglorious dust, by tomes From proof to proof the eye enraptured roams; FIDELITY. FROM THE SPANISH. ONE eve of beauty, when the sun, To gold converting, one by one, And eyes that might the world have cheated, She stooped, and wrote upon the sand, I could have sworn 'twas silver flowing. The Syren wrote upon the shore"Death, not inconstancy!' |