The smile that,—then when all things smiled,—

Was, ever, like none other;

The kiss-oh! kisses warm and wild,

But not like thine, young mother!
May burn the brain and waste the breast,
Thine only lullabied to rest!-
And give the lip a poison-hue,
Where thine fell down, like dew!

And oh! how beautifully bright,
Upon thy glad, young brow,
The matron-coronal,—whose light

Lies hallowing all things, now!—
Till all that was too much of earth
Is winnowed from thy sighs,
And love, that had a mortal birth,
Is tending to the skies!—
Though fair thy virgin-years might be,

How far more fair thou art!

A mother's hopes have twined, for thee,

A cestus of the heart,—

That flings a glow more rich and warm

O'er every consecrated charm!

Sweet thoughts, beneath thy baby's spells,

Across thy fancy throng,

As nightingales, where echo dwells,

Breathe out their sweetest song!

And thou-whose resting-place is, still,

A gentle mother's breast,Take out, by love's untainted rill, Thy sweet and pleasant rest; Or look for visions like the sky's, Within her fond and sanguine eyes,Those telescopes, where sun and star Seem nearer than, in truth, they are! The world has no such future bed, Nor any dream so sweet,— When, with its storms above thy head, Its graves beneath thy feet, Thine early home shall seem, to thee, Some scene of vanished faëry ;When thou, perchance, shalt sit apart, To sorrow o'er thy silent heart, A dial, with its sunlight gone, That only speaks when shone upon!

A mother's love!-that gushing spring,
That sends a sweet and silver stream
(Beneath whose low, dim murmuring
The soul lies down, to dream
Of vanished good, from present ill,
When all its other harps are still!)
Along life's dull and narrow vale,
To haunt us, like an ancient tale,

And on our path, where'er we roam,

Go, singing of its home!—

(Like Arethusa's rill, of old,

That through the earth, and through the sea,

Led on its waters sweet and cold,

In unstained purity;

And rose as fresh as at its spring,
From all its long, dark journeying!)—

And oh! how fondly, on its brink,
When other streams are dried away,
The thirsty spirit kneels, to drink,
And listen to its lay ;—

Its sweet, sad lay,—that steals along,
At once a sorrow and a song;
That-with a voice of sadness-cheers,
And makes us glad—through tears!
Oh! might we trace its upward course,
And wander backward, to its source,
On that bright upland, far away,

Where hopes-like fairies-used to play,
Hopes, that-like fairies, when they part,-

Left withered rings about the heart!

Young mother!-'t is a joy to creep,--

When many joys are gone,—
Back to the grave of hope,—and weep,
Where memory keeps the stone!

Till, soothed by voices from the tomb, And chastened by the church-yard gloom, The spirit comes abroad-to see

That earth has, still, such forms as thee!
(Oh! fairer than those winged things
That came to counsel - and depart,
When earth, from heaven, had visitings,
And angels talked with men apart,—
In that the heaven which gave you wings,
Hath hung them round the heart,—

Wings but to follow, not to rove,
For all their feathers are of love!)

To find, amid the paths of life,

The friend, the mother, and the wife;
And feel the world, whose sun is set,

Is full of moonlight beauty, yet!

My soul is glad to gaze on thee;-
Thou movest me, like melody!

TRANSPLANTED FLOWERS.

I.

NAY, hold, sweet lady, thy cruel hand;
Oh! sever not thus our kindred band;
And look not upon us with pitiless eye,
As on flowerets born but to bloom and die!

II.

With none to respond our evening sigh,
In a foreign home we must droop and die.-
The bonds of kindred we once have known,
And how can we live in the world alone?

III.

Oh lady, list to the voice of mirth,
By childhood wakened around thy hearth,
And think how lonely thy heart would pine
Should fortune the bonds of love untwine.

IV.

Even now in the midst of that circle blest,

There are lonely thoughts in thine aching breast; And how wouldst thou weep, if, bereft of all, Thou shouldst sit alone in thine empty hall?